The Crater Lake Lodge
The Crater Lake Lodge, Crater Lake National Park, Oregon
The lodge is large four-story structure overlooking the lake, built by William Steel in the rustic style of great northwestern hotels. Steel’s dream was to have a grand hotel, which was comfortable and served good food for people enjoying the location’s natural wonders. Construction began in 1909, but the building season is extremely short. After several delays and construction difficulties, you can imagine the limitations of moving all the building materials to an altitude of 6,178 feet by wagon, the lodge opened its doors the summer of 1915.
Native stone is used for the first-floor walls, with dark brown shingles covering the higher levels, and light brown shingles on the roof. You walk under a long green awning to enter the building and greeted by a modest front desk, to the right is the dining area and the left are elevators to the guest rooms.
The rooms belong in a mountain lodge. Our room was modest, a split-level affair with a bed, desk, and bathroom downstair. The bathroom has an old ceramic tub, with a shower curtain set up, and a pedestal sink. Upstairs we had a queen bed and a moderate amount of space. Out a small window, is a view of Crater Lake, which I include at the right. When I said the lodge is located on the edge of the lake, I wasn’t kidding. I would go to that window first thing in the morning and take another look before I went to bed.
Crater Lake lodge displays its history proudly. On sections of the walls on your way to the elevator are framed pictures of the past. A short sample; one is of a park ranger standing next to the original Crater Lake national park sign, another photo of the dining room circa 1917, shows a waitress dressed in a black dress and white apron, her guests seated around tables draped in white cloth, another picture of a frozen Crater Lake. One of my favorites is Charles Lindbergh flying the Spirit of St. Louis over the lake in 1927.
On the first floor, as you make your way from the elevators to the dining room you need to stop at the space dedicated to the early days of the lodge’s operation. You can take a walk through the eras with an example of the ‘1934 Schedule of Rates’, a room with hot and cold water, with a double bed for two, will cost you $4. Let’s say, during the same timeframe, 1935, I want to start my day with a big breakfast before exploring the lake. A menu shows me if I sat down and ordered an orange juice, 20 cents, a little fruit, I’ll take the cantaloupe, 15 cents, ham and eggs, going big today, 35 cents, got to have some buttered toast 15 cents, and coffee, how can I forget coffee, 10 cents; for a grand total of 95 cents. I get all things are relative, the average annual middle-class salary was probably around $700, but damn, that’s when a buck had some buying power.
You’ll see pictures from the 1960s of the lodge in winter, one with a snowdrift partially obscuring the building. To juxtapose this is a photo of a young lady laying on her stomach, sunbathing on the hood of a two door Pontiac. Her outfit looks very similar to a sports top and spandex shorts you’d see in a gym today.
I won’t lie, the car was the star of the photo. The picture is in black and white, but the car appears to be white, with four headlights stacked vertically, two on each side. I can make out those great fly windows, which disappeared from car construction decades ago. My first car, a used Buick, was equipped with them. On a hot summer day, you opened them to direct the airflow toward you, old fashion air conditioning. I’m not an automotive expert, but on later research, I believe it’s a 1963 Pontiac Bonneville.
There was a Medford Mall Tribune newspaper article from 1910, written while the lodge was under construction. Another article was from the 1980s, when it became apparent the lodge needed to be torn down or rehabilitated. The Park Service asked advice from the public, who favored preservation.
You need to walk past this niche coming and going from your room, don’t miss a chance to take the time and check it out.
As you’re heading to dinner, the main area to congregate is decorated in solid mission style tables and chairs. The space is dominated by a massive fieldstone fireplace.
The large square wood columns done with clean, straight lines, support a ceiling of the same golden coloring.
Eight over eight windows look out onto the lake, over a large stone patio. Out on the patio, a long row of rockers sit waiting. It was still chilly when we visited, but I could envision guests, rocking softly before and after dinner, with a glass of wine in hand, enjoying nature’s show.
The bar is a small free-standing affair just outside the dining room, without seats. You walk up, get your choices, and find a spot to relax and talk about the day. The dining room is not an overwhelming space, it’s beams are made to look like alpine spruce and mission style light fixtures hang from the ceiling, but my praise ends there. The food was fine, the selection was enough to keep most people happy, but there was no ambience in the place. Maybe, I ruined the experience for myself by looking at several of the dining room pictures from the turn of the century; white table cloths, flowers on the table, and what looks like fine dishware. The room didn’t match the rest of the lodge; generic chairs, bare tables, a bit of a bore. I left with the feeling they could have done better with the space, but the food was fine and the wine soon vanquished my disappointment.
After diner we picked a spot in front of the fireplace in the main sitting area. I’ve written I like to do this, stop, and take in a place. The era I felt most in Crater Lake Lodge, was probably the late 1940’s, right after WW2. There is a lot of history on the lodge, from the struggles of getting the lodge built and preserving the lake with it’s growing popularity, especially after car travel became prevalent, but there is a sense of a sanctuary here. This isn’t a place of adrenaline filled rides, plunging water slides, or sports bars with two dozen wide screen televisions, but a place to be at peace. A place people came to after years of the economic depression and a long painful war, to remember it was good to simply to be alive. Existence is a blessing, it doesn’t need to be complex; to breathe, walk, feel the sun on your face, and just live.
After dust bowls and battlefields, people found beautiful places still existed. Places like this, on the edge of one of God’s most stunning creations, where the great architect of the universe, no matter how you choose to believe, welcomes us to sit, rest, and be in awe.
Our world can be a troubling place, mostly of our own making, yet, God still offers us respite. Around our world are locations of wonder, excitement, and splendor, given as a gift. Places like Crater Lake, to offer us a glimpse of what paradise truly is.
Lets talk Crater Lake
This Lodge exists solely because of its location, so I will take a few paragraphs to talk about Crater Lake. According to the welcome video you can watch at the park’s visitor’s center, Crater Lake sits in the remains of volcano. Mount Mazama stood in southern Oregon, with small eruptions, for over a half million years. About 7,700 years ago, the mountain blew up with such power it collapsed in on itself, creating a large caldera. Over the centuries, rain and snow filled the hole, until the body of water later known as Crater Lake formed. There is no river or underground spring feeding the lake, evaporation and a porous rock layer on the north shore keep the current level steady.
There is steep drive to reach it, but the sight of the lake as you look down from the edge of the caldera is breath taking and the blue of the water is hard to explain. I found myself taking off my polarized glasses to appreciate it better. According to the National Park Service website, the water is so blue because of its purity. It states, “We've all seen the colors in a rainbow when normal white light passes through a raindrop and breaks into the individual colors of the spectrum. All those colors are in sunlight. Water molecules, just plain water with no sediments, algae, pesticides or pollution, will absorb all the colors of the spectrum except the blues.” Zane Gray, the famous writer, said, “This rare blue is not of the earth.”
For hikers, a trek around the top of the caldera is a must, but a word of warning, we went in the beginning of June, and they were still working on opening the roads. We were told they plow a quarter mile a day, I thought, really, a quarter mile a day, until I saw the 12-foot high, hard as stone, snow the plows were moving through. The park receives an average of 533 inches of snow in a year, or more than 44 feet. There is a saying in these parts, Crater Lake has two seasons, Winter and the month of July. If you want to take advantage of the remarkable scenery, I would plan on a trip in July or August. You will never forget the first time you look down on the lake or the diverse woodlands which surround it.
A unique story, we asked a park ranger if there were any fish in the lake. The answer was yes, we could catch as many as we wanted, and take them with us. Between 1888 and 1941, thousands of rainbow trout minnows and salmon were released, the lake didn’t have any fish until they were introduced. In a drive to return the lake to its natural state, there is no catch and release, you can catch and keep, with the Park Service’s blessing.