Klamath Falls to Crater Lake and the Rim Drive

The Route at a Glance

From Klamath Falls the drive runs north on US-97 along the east shore of Upper Klamath Lake, Oregon's largest freshwater lake and the heart of one of the West's great marsh systems, with Mount McLoughlin standing over the far side. Past the Williamson River it turns west by Chiloquin, the Klamath Tribes' town, and joins OR-62 up the Wood River valley to Fort Klamath, where the four Modoc graves lie in the meadow beside the replica guardhouse. Then the road climbs through ponderosa and lodgepole pine to the park's south entrance and up Munson Valley to the rim.

The rim is the point of the trip: the lodge, the overlook at Rim Village, and the first look down the caldera wall to water so deep and clear it reads as ink. Rim Drive runs 33 miles around the caldera with more than thirty pullouts. West of the village it passes below the Watchman, over Wizard Island, the cinder cone that rises 767 feet out of the lake. On the north side it passes the trailhead at Cleetwood Cove, the only legal route down to the shore, closed for rebuilding from the 2026 season along with the boat tours. The east side runs high above Phantom Ship, a small island of older volcanic rock, and swings back down to Munson Valley.

Snow decides when any of this is possible. Park headquarters averages some 43 feet a year. OR-62 and the Munson Valley road are plowed through the winter, but Rim Drive opens in full only from about July into October, and the east side can stay shut longer than the west.

The Drive, Stop by Stop

5 stops along the route, in driving order from Klamath Falls, Oregon to Rim Village, Crater Lake National Park. One of them sits off the road itself — the distance is noted on each.

1. 1

   Upper Klamath Lake

   Klamath Falls

   Oregon's largest lake, wide and shallow, where farms, endangered suckers and, since 2024, returning salmon all need the same water.

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2. 2

   Collier Memorial State Park and Logging Museum

   Chiloquin

   3.0 miles off the route

   An outdoor museum of a century of logging machinery in the pine woods north of Klamath Falls, given to the state by a lumberman and his banker brother.

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3. 3

   Fort Klamath

   Fort Klamath

   The army post that reached the Wood River Valley four years before Klamath Falls existed, and the treaty signed near it that put three peoples on one reservation.

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4. 4

   Crater Lake Lodge

   Crater Lake

   A hotel on the caldera rim that opened in 1915 with tar paper on its walls, was never quite finished, came close to demolition, and is now mostly new behind its old face.

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5. 5

   Watchman Lookout

   Crater Lake

   A 1932 fire lookout on an 8,013-foot rim peak, built to watch for smoke and to teach hikers at the same time, straight above Wizard Island.

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That's the drive. Take your time, pull over often, and let Klamath Falls to Crater Lake and the Rim Drive do what it does best.