TLDR: 7 Day Van/Car camping trip National Monuments and National Parks in Southern Oregon and Northern California. The trip was an opportunity to take Devon and Rain down to Lassen NP for exploration, a place they had not been previously. On the way down and back we had fun exploring Lava Beds National Monument. Several days were spent exploring Lassen NP, including a summit of Lassen Peak at over 10K feet elevation. On the return trip we stayed near Crater Lake and were able to spend Saturday AM at the park watching the Ducks Football game from the rim.
- Trip Type: 7 Day Van/Car National Parks & Monuments Camping Trip
- Trip Dates: 7th – 13th of September, 2025
- Trip Location: Southern Oregon / Northern California
- Permit Required: National Parks and Monuments Entry Passes
- Distance: Lots of Driving Miles
- Party Members: Chris, Rain & Devon
- Camping Options: Van/Car Camps Abundant + National Parks Campgrounds Widely Available Sites
- Weather: Moderate Temps, Clouds, Rain, Storms, Sun Breaks, Fall Mix
- Other Conditions: Low Season @ National Parks (Campgrounds Partially Shut), Less Crowds Overall
- Bonus Points: TBD
- Demerits: TBD
- Pack Weights: N/A
The main goal of this trip was a visit to Lassen. Rain and Devon had not previously been to this smaller National Park and so we took the opportunity in the shoulder season to make the visit. I have found that shoulder season visits to pretty much any National Park or Monument fit my style of travel much better than trying to go during peak season for a lot of reasons. This trip was no exception, and while there are some additional challenges to work through such as less campground availability and rougher weather – the fewer crowds and availability at those campsites which are open for last minute (sometimes without services late in the year, as was the case here) make it the more desirable option.
Its pretty cool having these National Parks & Monuments within a days driving distance of Eugene. They offer spectacular landscapes and hiking opportunities and a range of different types of things to do pretty close to home. When I had my first chance to visit Lassen NP a few years ago, I was surprised by some of the features such as the Bumpass Hell geothermal area – which is more akin to what you’d expect in Yelllowstone a much further distance from home.
Day 1: Initial Drive Through Oakridge & Camping along Hwy 97 – For the beginning of the trip we stopped in Oakridge for food at the Dinks market, which offers a mix of American and Indian foods made fresh by the newer owners. They make some excellent food, and while I cannot eat many of the options due to Nightshades, I was able to have a modified Philly Cheese Steak sandwich, which was excellent. Rain and Devon had Indian food, with Devon giving the Butter Chicken dish high marks for both quality and amount multiple times over.
Heading up Hwy 58 from Oakridge we soon got to Willamette Pass and made a quick stop in at Rosary Lakes TH to check for Chicken of The Woods mushrooms, with the season lining up perfectly for fruiting. We were in luck. There was a nice cluster, on the “Chicken Tree” that we’ve known about here for many years. It looked like the mushrooms had been there for a bit of time already but still had plenty of nice firm and fresh sections that we harvested. We cooked these into various dishes over several days of the trip including in omelets and as burger toppings. They were pretty good, not the best ever due to being a little older than prime – but certainly added something to the dishes that we included them into.
Our van/car camping spot for the first night was nothing special. Just a simple pull out in an old rock quarry area near the junction of Hwy 97 & 138, which make a good and easy place to crash and move on the next day.
Day 2: Explore Lava Caverns Monuments & Caves, drove to Lassen NP for Camping – We spent most of this day exploring various caves in the Lava Beds National Monument. There are over 900 caves (with dozens of good ones readily available to check out) in the park. It was a fun experience going through several different types of caves all with different properties that kept each new explore fun and exciting. There were both very short and quite large and longer caves that went quite a bit deeper. One highlight was the Skull Cave which is a larger opening with very nice walkways and even metal stairs allowing access to the bottom. The lower section traps cold air and an icy floor which also has a old sheep skull that you can see and was also where two human skeletons were discovered. It was a very cool way to spend the day exploring under the surface.
Day 3: Exploring Bumpass Hell and Kings Creek Canyon at Lassen, Summit Lake Campgrounds for duration at park – We were able to secure a spot the next day and for the duration at the Summit Lake CGs in the national park. This is always a little risky as you aren’t sure what the actual spot will be like from the reservation system and of course what types of neighbors you may have. In this case we reserved two spots to start, to provide options (and ended up going down to a single spot later in the trip, which had capacity for our van/car/tent camping setup.
Bumpass Hell is the primary geothermal area of the park and quite popular, even in shoulder season. It is about a 1.5 mile or so hike to the feature which has a boardwalk and a number of bubbling, steaming pools and strange features to check out. There is a nice overlook that you can hike to just beyond the main feature, that leads to other trails and gives a cool hang out space providing a vista overlook at the entire basin. It is a feature you don’t expect to find in Northern California, and is akin to something more commonly found at Yellowstone, much further away. This day hike was certainly one of the highlighted experiences we had during our time in the park and I would certainly go again.
We did a second hike on Day 3 as well, which ended up being another highlight of the trip, Kings Creek Canyon. This one was one of those that had a cooler trip to and back as compared to the waterfall (Kings Creek Falls) at the end. Don’t get me wrong, the waterfall was cool it’s just the hundreds of steps carved into granite along the creek canyon that we followed out was cooler. Definately one of the top three items to do in the par that I have experienced so far.
Day 4: Rainy day, drove out of the park a bit, had ice cream, low-key day – Not much happened on Day 4 as it was a pretty rainy day for the most part. It ended up being a drive around and explore type of day. We headed back out of the park, checked out the visitor center and eventually made it to a store that had really good, and really big ice cream cones – so a nice reward for the adventure. Also there was a stop at an overlook site, that was cool but not super spectacular and I cannot remember the specific name of it, as it was sort of that forgettable.
Day 5: Day Hiking to Cold Boiling Lake and Shadow, Cliff & Unnamed Lake Hike – Yes we ended up at Cliff Lake on this trip, but not one of the Oregon based Cliff Lakes however. This Cliff Lake was via a day trip to three smaller lakes at the park, which included Cliff as the furthest small lake, which featured a nice adjacent cliff, cool inlet stream and a very cool Reishi mushroom. Each lake had its own charm with Shadow being the largest of the three and offering some reflections of Lassen Peak.
The “Cold Boiling Lake” is another story, sort of a fun hike but not super awesome end destination kind of thing. Not that it was bad, it just wasn’t very spectacular after already seeing Bumpass Hell (I think it could have been better seen first). It’s also a stretch to call it a “lake” it is more of a small pond, if that. The hike was a bit wet as well, as it started raining on us when we arrived at the boiling lake and kept raining pretty much the remainder of the day.
Day 6: Summit of Lassen Peak, Move to South of Crater Lake Van/Car Camp – This was the big one of the trip. We had to time it right due to a lot of non-summit friendly weather during most of our trip at the park. In fact I believe this was the only day that we felt was OK to make the climb up to the top. So the hike to the top is not overly difficult in respect to other mountain summits, even though you still end up at an elevation higher than the South Sister at 10,457 feet of elevation. The trailhead parking is already at 8500 feet so you have a big head start on the typical mountain summit. That being said, it is easier, but it aint really easy – it’s still a mountain summit and has all of the features and requirements that go along with that. The hike up was nice, though it was certainly crowded – so I would hate to try this in the peak season. The weather was nice and changed between mostly sunny and partly cloudy at various points, gaining clouds the later in the day (we would have preferred less clouds) it became. It is a long switchbacking slog up over really high quality trails generally and no sketchy situations until maybe a little bit at the very top when trying to scramble around a little bit. There was a snowfield at the top which was kind of cool as well and the views were quite spectacular. This was Rains first over 10K mountain summit and she really enjoyed the experience.
One interesting factoid that we didn’t know at the time – within about 1 week of our summit of Lassen Peak, Chuck Norris celebrated his 85th birthday by climbing it as well. Apparently it’s one of his favorite hikes!
Day 7: Into Crater Lake NP, Dealing with mass crowds and closures due to Rim Ride. Watched Game from Rim pullout, drove home afterwards – This was a pretty fun day, so after our climb the day before we had broken down camp and staged the van at the campground day parking lot so we were ready to depart. We drove several hours up into Klamath Falls where we ate dinner and then afterwards drove around the other side of Klamath Lake (oh my, the splattering windshield bugs!!). This put us proximus to the southern entry to Crate Lake NP – which was our destination for the early Ducks Football Game (9AM start I believe).
The only real challenge we had with the plan, which was to find a pullout or location to watch the game on the laptop using Starlink was the “Rim Ride” which was going on. That meant that half of the rim road was closed and there were huge numbers of bikers being shuttled and riding loops around the lake. Also that meant that much more of the traffic at the park was focused on a single side of the rim and so it was a pretty crowded place.
It was no biggie though as a lot of people were quite interested in our freaking killer setup! I mean we pulled up set out tables, opened up the van and got streaming video going for football. We got our chairs out, relaxed and prepped coffee while cooking bacon and pancakes. I mean I can only think of one cooler place I have watched a Ducks Football Game (from the summit of South Sister). So what an awesome day!!! Then we headed home to call it a trip.
