Originally Posted by
axolotl
I biked the entire loop around Crater Lake on a beautiful sunny day in early September. (I drove up to the park, however.) It's a gorgeous but exhausting ride because it's mostly up and down with some long climbs. I read that in the 33 mile loop around the lake, the total amount of climbing adds up to about 3,800 feet. Parts of the road are away from the rim with no view of the lake, but it's still wonderful.
I have done it (unloaded) twice as part of two Cycle Oregons in the same conditons at the same time of year. First time we rode up from Daimond Lake, did the loop and rode back down to the lake. The second time we came up from Fort Klamath, did the loop and rode down to Prospect. I think the two trips prematurely aged me. I remember the first time feeling that I didn't even want to do the 12 mile descent back to Diamond Lake. I was that exhausted. The map for that day shows a total of 59.8 miles and 6,470' of eleveation gain, with four peaks of over 7,000'. I believe that includes the short out and back to Cloud Cap Overlook, which offers terrific views.
This is the only photo I have handy at the moment:
