Days: 4
Level: Moderate
Daily Mileage: 54 ave - 216 total
Start/Finish: Portland, OR
Price: $550

 

Meals: All included
Restaurants: optional meal at Crater Lake Lodge
Motels: Thursday night in Medford
Events & Activities:


The Crater Lake Rim Ride is one of Oregon’s classic rides but at 33 miles around it is, by itself, a nice days ride. In addition to riding the Crater Lake Rim, this tour includes riding the Rogue River, riding the rim of Crater Lake, and riding on to Ashland by way of Lake of the Woods.

We require an early Thursday afternoon departure to allow us time to drive south to Medford. We will be staying in a motel Thursday night due to our late arrival time.

On Friday morning we ride out from our motel and start our ride towards Crater Lake. While the ride is only 39 miles long it climbs 4000' up to Crater Lake - it's a long slow climb up a 2% grade. Luckily there are lots of reasons to stop along the way. We will stop to take a look at Mill Creek Falls and the natural bridge over the Rogue River among others. We continue our climb on to the Mazama Campground in Crater Lake National Park where we will camp for 2 nights.

On Saturday we ride the rim! The trick with riding the rim is to leave early to beat the heat of the day. We leave camp at 7 am for what will be a challenging four hour ride.

Our 39 mile ride around the rim includes 3 large climbs at an elevation of between 6000 and 8000 feet. But you will know that it is all worth it when you climb up to the rim and see Crater Lake for the first time. The ride will take about four hours so you will be back to camp in time for lunch. In the afternoon we will shuttle up to the Main Lodge where you can hike around the rim a bit or have lunch in the dining room.

We leave Crater Lake Sunday morning with an easy downhill ride south towards Upper Klamath Lake. Most of the days ride will be on the valley floor as we ride past the lake. One short climb at the end of the day takes us up to the Lake of the Woods where we spend the night at a campground on the lake.

On Monday our route passes by the Pacific Crest Trail several times as we ride along at the 5000 foot elevation. We ride past Howard Prairie Lake and Hyatt Reservoir and then we start dropping down into the valley towards Ashland. It is an easy ride down the hill to Emigrant Lake where we ride around the lake and on in to the outskirts of Ashland were we get cleaned up before heading back to Portland.

Tour details may change without notice. Although you'll have an up-to-date itinerary prior to departure,
changes due to unforeseen circumstances may occur at any time.