Diamond Lake, Oregon - June 15th to 18th, 2024
Diamond Lake was a last minute decision. We wanted to camp in Crater Lake National Park, but their campground wasn’t open for the season yet. Diamond Lake is just north of Crater Lake. It turned out to be a wonderful place to camp and explore.
Saturday was a short driving day, but we needed the time to figure out where we would be camping for the night. Our original plan was to camp inside Crater Lake National Park, but they hadn’t opened up the campground yet. In fact, most of the roads inside the park were still closed due to snow. A few days prior, we tried to reserve site at Diamond Lake Campground, north of Crater Lake. We were able to grab a site for Monday and Tuesday nights, but it was too close to reserve one for Saturday and Sunday nights. We could see that a few sites were open for first come/first serve. So we decided to take our chances and try to show up for one of those.
The drive from Lake of the Woods to Diamond Lake was pretty. We took highway 62 over to 230, passing right by the southwestern entrance to Crater Lake. Highway 62 follows alongside a deep, narrow canyon. At one overlook, we could see fossilized steam vents. An informational sign provided the details; otherwise, we wouldn’t have known what we were looking at.
Our initial thought was to stop by Crater Lake just to make sure the campground was still closed. However, there was a long line to get into the park. It wasn’t worth the wait on such a long shot and continued on. Luckily, when we arrived at Diamond Lake, they still had a couple of sites left. It meant we had to switch sites after two days, but that was better than switching campgrounds. We were planning on driving back up to Crater Lake on Monday anyways.
Diamond Lake is not an ideal place to visit Crater Lake when the north entrance is closed, since it is north of Crater Lake. The drive to the southwest entrance is almost an hour. But it was better than nothing. The lake itself is pretty, nestled between two mountain peaks, Mount Bailey and Mount Thielsen. It was a cold day and forecasted to be cold during our stay, so paddle boarding was out of the question, for Ann anyway. Highs were in the 40’s with lows below freezing. Our furnace will get a good workout while we were here.
After we settled into our site, we went for a walk. The campground is long and narrow along the shore of the lake, so no camp site is very far from the lake. We cannot see the lake from our site due to all of the trees, but it is only about 100 yards from one of the boat ramps. We followed the campground roads down to the south end of the campground and back, which was just a little over half of the whole campground as there are more camp sites north of our site. At the far end was South Shore Pizza. We noticed that it was only open Fridays through Sundays. It didn’t look quite as inviting as the pizzeria at the Lake of the Woods Resort (Lake of the Woods, Oregon - June 11th to 14th, 2024). We covered 3.5 miles during our walk. After dinner, we walked the rest of the length of the campground, which added another 1.7 miles to our walking for the day. That’s about how far we go on a hike.
Sunday was another cold day. It was in the 40’s most of the day. We decided to bundle up and go for a bike ride. There is a paved path around the lake, about 11 miles long. First we checked with the staff at the campground office to make sure e-bikes were allowed on the path, since it is clearly marked “no motorized vehicles”. E-bikes are always in that gray area.
Originally we were going wait until noon to ride in the counter-clockwise direction, stopping first at the restaurant at the resort for lunch. Then we looked at the weather forecast. It was supposed to start raining at 3 pm. Uh-oh! So we hurried up and started off on our bikes around 11 am. We then went in the clockwise direction so we would stop at the restaurant near the end of our ride. That way, if it started raining, we could skip the restaurant and go straight back to Red Tail (our Winnebago EKKO).
The bike path was mostly in the woods. At the south end of the lake, it passes through a marshy area, with lily ponds and meadows, crossing a few pretty streams. A deer crossed the path in front of us. Another animal, some type of weasel, also sprung across, not once, but twice! Unfortunately, we did not have any cameras rolling at the time. On the west side of the lake, we heard a couple of bald eagles up in the trees. We caught a glimpse or two of them, but didn’t get a good look at them. If you’ve never heard a bald eagle before, they don’t sound like you would imagine or what the movies lead you to believe they sound like. They are rather squeaky and squawky, having a pretty distinctive noise.
We thought there would be more views of the lake from the trail. Most of the views were at the north end. We were glad we were going in the clockwise direction, because Mount Thielson was in view in front of us as we rode along the northern shore. The mountain has a very distinctive pointed spire at the top, that reminded us of the Sorting Hat from Harry Potter.
It was cloudy all day, but still hadn’t started raining by the time we reached the restaurant, so we stopped for lunch. Ann is always up for a reuben and Keith loves chicken pot pies. Ann had fries with her sandwich while Keith opted for a cup of chili. All of our food was tasty and, more importantly, warm. As we sat there inside the lodge enjoying our meal, we could see the wind picking up outside.
It was less than two miles from the restaurant back to Red Tail, but it was a cold ride. We had cooled off while sitting in the restaurant. Then we had a debate with ourselves as we rode. Should we ride fast to get back sooner and out of the cold? Or do we ride slower to create less wind chill? The dilemma kept us at our normal pace.
When we got back, we immediately put the bikes away and took refuge inside Red Tail. We had left the furnace running while we were gone, so it was nice and warm inside. Within the hour after returning, it started to rain. Perfect timing! It rained off and on the rest of the day, but we stayed cozy inside.
It was Father’s Day, so Ann baked apple brownies for dessert in the evening. There was enough ice cream left for us each to have a scoop on top of our hot, sizzling treats.
We spent Monday at Crater Lake National Park. We’ll cover that in our next post.
Tuesday was a relaxing day at Diamond Lake. We hung out at camp most of the day. It got a little warmer as temperatures climbed into the 60’s. Ann worked on a post, while Keith continued to be frustrated by our Starlink setup. He attached the new connectors onto the new cables. Then he tried using the new connector he bought for the roof box. He didn’t like the first one he installed because it was attached with only two screws and didn’t seem very secure. However, he was not getting any connectivity through the new mounted connector. So he cut the cable once again and went back to the original mounted connector. Luckily he was able to pull one of the pieces that he had thrown away out of our trash can before it made its way to a campground dumpster.
Now we have a working 50 foot cable with a waterproof connector that connects to a short cable that runs from the roof box over to the ladder. When we travel, we will disconnect the 50 foot cable from the cable on the ladder and attach a waterproof cap to the end of the short cable. The only thing left to do is add the water proof connectors to the ten foot cable, which is probably the one we would use more often than the 50 foot one. Hopefully, the rest will go more smoothly than the install so far.
We switched camp sites the night before. Our second camp site is much better than our first one. It is much closer to the lake shore, with a great view of Mount Bailey right out our side windows of Red Tail. There was also an opening in the trees next to our site, with enough view of the sky to get a good Starlink connection. Keith was happy.
At lunchtime, we stretched our legs and walked over to the resort restaurant. It was only a mile down the paved path from our camp site. This time Ann opted for the Bacon Bailey burger with a cup of chili while Keith had the fish basket with fries. Similar to the last time, our meals were pretty good.
Before heading back, we stopped into the resort store and bought some vanilla ice cream. We were out of ice cream and needed some to go with our leftover apple brownies. We got a 1.5 quart container, wrapped it in Keith’s hoodie to insulate it, and made it the mile back to Red Tail before it started to melt. Mission accomplished.
Even though Diamond Lake wasn’t in our original plans, we loved our time there. It is a wonderful place to stay and explore, even if you aren’t planning on visiting Crater Lake.
Check out our related video: Diamond Lake, Oregon
(Ann)