Pluses and Minuses

(Sunday, September 21). It's been 10 years since was last drove through Crater Lake National Park (on our way to a lake near Bend, nearly due north from here), 16 years since we last stayed in the park, and 35 years since we bunked at the lodge on the rim. A lot has changed since then.
The campground up near the rim is gone; that means less congestion in this area (a plus for lodge-dwellers like ourselves, but a minus for campers who have to drive at least 3 miles to get here from their tents). The road at the rim has been re-routed around the snackbar/gift shop giving walkers a clear, auto-free route along the rim, a definite improvement from the "old days" when you had to dodge cars.
The old historic lodge was in danger of collapsing and the National Park Service wanted to demolish it (which would have been a big minus). Fortunately, public support for rebuilding and restoring the lodge convinced the park managers that was the way to go. From the outside, the rebuilt lodge looks almost identical to the original building; inside and structurally, it is all up to date, stronger than before thanks to steel reinforced concrete construction, but still having the "National Park Rustic" feel of the great lodges in Yellowstone, Glacier, Yosemite, the Grand Canyon, and elsewhere. This is all a big plus.
When we stayed in the old lodge in 1973 the room was furnished with a cheaply-made water bed (remember those?). It was like sleeping in Noah's Ark and being tossed about in The Big Flood. Our room in the new lodge may or may not be bigger than the one we had back in '73; the bed, however, acts just like a waterbed --- take a deep breath and you and your "bunkie" are tossed from one side to the other.
The lodge has a boiler heating system. This means that it is often way too hot in both the public areas like the lobby and dining room, or in the guest rooms. Last night it was like an oven in our room even with the window open and the outside temperature probably around 40 degrees. (Tonight, for some reason, it seems much cooler). Why electric heating wasn't provided in the guest rooms is a mystery to us.
Service in the lodge's dining room is generally good, although one could get stuck with either a very early or very late seating unless one called ahead (as we did) to make a reservation. The menu selections aren't bad (unless you are a vegetarian, or worse yet, a vegan --- no selections designed with you in mind), although the quality of the food is a bit lacking. The original lodge had a bar with a great view out over the lake, but alas, this was not included in the rebuilding of the lodge. (There is cocktail and beverage service in the Great Hall lobby area next to the dining room).
A large dining area and bar used to be located upstairs in the building up the road from the lodge that houses a gift shop and it offered a sit-down dining experience to visitors who couldn't snag a table at the lodge dining room, or who found the meal prices there too high for their tastes or pocketbooks. Today, there is just a small "fast food" cafeteria-style eatery next to the gift shop and it closes very early at this time of the year.
Xanterra, the concessionaire seems to be doing a good job of running the lodge and other visitor services here, and we've been impressed with their operations in Yellowstone and Yosemite. But staying in a National Park Lodge is no longer something every American can afford --- it has gotten rather pricey and you can tell that the guests here are reasonably well-off. The prices aren't deterring visitation, either --- booking a room here in the very late spring to early fall season is about as hard as getting a room at Yosemite during the same time period.
So the good news is that Crater Lake continues to be an excellent vacation destination, although in some respects, it is less "visitor friendly" than it was in years past.