The Editor’s Note: Returning to spectacular Crater Lake

Emma Cocoles takes in the moment at Oregon’s Crater Lake, a spectacular view the editor was lucky enough to experience a second time about 35 years after his first. (CHRIS COCOLES)

t was a long time ago, but one of my favorite teenage memories was road-tripping

Iwith my dad to Northern California and Oregon. It was a refreshing change of pace for usual family getaways.

I’ve written in this space before about Cocoles clan summer vacations. It was essentially Lake Tahoe, and Lake Tahoe, and then Lake Tahoe again. Which I can’t complain about too much now and it fills me with plenty of nostalgia as I’ve gotten older. But somehow one summer I convinced my pop to do something different for a father-son trip.

So sometime around my junior or senior year of high school we got in his vintage 1963 Lincoln Continental and headed north along Highway 101, checking out the NorCal coast before heading inland into Oregon, my first visit to another state not named Nevada.

We eventually hit Crater Lake National Park. (I’ll never forget my dad offering a ride to a solo German tourist who was hiking up the steep hill along the highway to reach the visitor’s center. The young man was extremely grateful to avoid that ascent.)

When we got to the rim of Crater Lake, I was in awe of the view of the filled-in caldera that was once 12,000-foot Mount Mazama before it erupted almost 8,000 years ago. Having seen the epic blue waters of Tahoe so many times I hadn’t witnessed anything like it. Until the pilgrimage to Crater Lake.

More than 35 years later I was fortunate enough to return. My sister Charlene, niece Amanda and my dog Emma joined me this time, and I was so thrilled to see other family members have the same reaction I did with my dad.

I couldn’t help but reflect about that first trip and how lucky we are to savor the surreal beauty of our treasured national parks. (The next day we got to repeat the moment all over again when we checked out more stunning vistas – plus a lot of deer – at Washington’s Olympic National Park enroute to my home in Seattle.)

My niece is now obsessed with visiting as many national parks as she can trek to. And shame on me for waiting so long to get back to Crater Lake. But holy crap, that view was as breathtaking and memorable as the first time. -Chris Cocoles