Distance: 41 Miles

 This hike was in the Sky Lake Wilderness and the Crater Lake National Park and provided a wide diversity of terrain from mountain lakes, alpine, and dessert. I am going to break this trip into several segments to avoid having any too long.

 Our trip started at Four Mile Lake which is off of Highway 140 near Lake of the Woods. To stage our trip we dropped a car near Crater Lake at the Lodgepole Picnic Area. You need to be sure and get the appropriate permits to park from the National Forest which can get at the Ranger Station.

 This area is a very popular hiking, horse camping and camping area, on summer weekends it is likely to be busy. We picked the week prior to Labor Day Weekend and had the entire area to ourselves. Being late in the summer we also avoided the mosquito swarms.

 Day 1:

 

We started our trip by getting lost as we tried to find our way around Four Mile Lake. Since there is a lot of trails and traffic around the lake we missed a turn that we needed to make. Once we found the right trail it was smooth sailing.

 We covered 6.3 miles on reasonably flat terrain starting at 5700′, climbing to 6100′ before dropping back down to 5900′. Much of the trail is in forests, but we did get occasional views of Mt McLoughlin.

 There were a number of lakes along the way, but to be honest they were nothing in comparison to what we saw later in the trip. We stopped for lunch at Badger Lake.

 

Our first night was at D Lake. There were a number of camping sites around Island Lake which is next to D Lake.

 

One point of interest in this area is a Shasta Red Fir on the south end of Island Lake where early-day Oregon conservationist Judge John B Waldo carved his name. He and his group were one of the first recorded parties to travel the Waldo Lake to Mt Shasta section of what is now the Pacific Crest Trail.