Garfield Park Trail—CLNP

Difficulty: Strenuous (as rated by the Park Service)

Distance: 3.4 miles (round trip)

Elevation Gain: 984 feet (to summit)

Seasons: July to October

Description: 8,060-foot Garfield Peak is one of the most popular hikes in Crater Lake National Park, due its spectacular ‘top of the world’ views (among others: Diamond Peak 45 miles to the north, and Mt. Shasta 103 miles to the south). Also, along this generally north facing part of the rim you are never forced any time of the day to photograph Crater Lake while having to look directly into the sun.

Garfield Peak as viewed from just south east of Crater Lake Lodge (Summit is in the far, upper right corner.)

In contrast to Crater Lake’s more freshly erupted pumice fields and gray ash walled canyons, shallow soil formation along Garfield Peak’s older volcanic rocks (be they andesite, dacite or rhyolite) offers a wide range of high elevation plant habitats as well as geologic diversity. These varied “rock garden” habitats helps make the Garfield Peak Trail the Park’s most spectacular and varied subalpine and alpine wildflower hiking trail.

Some of the larger, more colorful wildflowers found after early summer snow melt are purplish-blue, Creeping Penstemon (Penstemon davidsonii); bright purplish pink, Cliff Penstemon (Penstemon rupicola); white to pale purple, Spreading Phlox (Phlox diffusa), and red, Applegate’s Paintbrush (Castilleja applegatei).

Penstemon rupicola, Cliff Penstemon

The sunflower family is especially well represented along the trail, with over a dozen showy species.1

One particular, unexpected plant here of interest is Mohala Mat (formerly called Squaw Carpet), (Ceanothus prostrates)--a small, holly-like leaved shrub that creeps close to the ground. While Mohala Mat seldom grows above 6,000 feet anywhere else, on Garfield Peak’s warmer southwest facing slopes it grows at nearly a 7800 ft. elevation.

One major caution: (as described in Jeffrey P. Schaffer’s 1983 classic book: “Crater Lake National Park and Vicinity”:

Roughly ¼ mile before the (Garfield Peak) trail’s end, when you reach the base of the summit block, you cross a ‘flat’ that can be snowbound well into summer. When it is, the route may not be clear, and those who venture east across the snow field will meet a precipitous, deadly drop off. The trail which ventures up the west side of the summit block, is quite safe, even with snow, but if you are uncertain about the route, turn back.”

Directions: From Crater Lake NP’s “Rim Village” continue another .4 mile and park just before the Crater Lake Lodge. The trail to Garfield Peak begins as a paved path along the rim side of the lodge. As soon as you are beyond the lodge, you remarkably leave all of this immediate area’s developed trappings, and enter what very much has the feel of a true wilderness. Here too, the traffic along the Park’s rim road is no longer immediately behind you, and you walk a portion of the rim as it might have felt before there were any cars.

From the very beginning of the trail on up, look for Crater Lake’s iconic White Bark Pine (Pinus albicaulis). It is distinguished by its individual bundles of 5 short needles. Thus pine achieves the highest elevation of any of Oregon’s conifers and becomes more shrub like in the park’s highest elevations. This alpine pine species, threatened by climate change, also depends primarily on the Clark’s Nutcracker for the dispersal of seeds, and thus the tree species’ ongoing regeneration.

White Bark Pine with red pollen cones. And fledged Clark’s Nutcracker still begging food from parent.

Also, along this first half mile of mostly level trail are wildflowers of pinkish, low growing Pussy Paws (Calytridiun umbellatum) right beside (more erect) whitish Pussy Toes (Antennaria rosea). Never mind the adjacent deep blue lake and the spectacular views, just getting to see this botanical, common name coincidence is surely a special ‘feline digital detail’ to long remember (and therefore is probably worth the whole trip to Garfield Peak all in itself!)

Pussy Paws & Pussy Toes (upper) shamelessly growing side by side on the lower Garfiled Peak Trail.

Park Service sign board, beyond the Crater Lake Lodge, near the beginning of the Garfield Butte Trail

The 8,060-foot summit of Garfield Peak (1887 ft. above the lake’s surface)—as seen from Discovery Point

Who was Garfield Peak named after?

Garfield Peak was NOT named for former President James A. Garfield--assassinated only 4 months after he assumed office in 1881--but rather it was named 26 years later for the 20th US President’s son.

On July 15, 1907 Garfield Peak was named by Crater Lake National Park advocate William Steel for then President Teddy Roosevelt’s Interior Secretary James Rudolph Garfield (1865-1950). James R. Garfield was a lawyer, a politician, and son of President James Abram Garfield and First Lady Lucretia Garfield. James R. Garfield was also the first US cabinet officer to visit Crater Lake. He served as US Interior Secretary from just 1907 to 1909. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Rudolph_Garfield

Finally, and since this trail description is also about wildflowers: A very useful book to the Park’s most frequently encountered wildflowers (including the species mentioned here) is:“101 Wildflowers of Crater Lake National Park” by Grant and Wenonah Sharpe, updated and expanded by Ken Carloni; copyright 2014 by Umpqua Watersheds, Inc., PO Box 101 Roseburg, OR www.umpqua-watershed.org

1Over a dozen Sunflower Family species of flowers seen along the Garfield Peak Trail:Ageratina occidentalis Western SnakerootAgoseris glauca Pale AgoserisAnaphalis margaritacea Pearly EverlastingAntennaria rosea Rosy Pussy ToesAntennaria media Alpine Pussytoes (near summit)Arnica cordifolia Heartleaf ArnicaArnica longifolia Longleaf ArnicaChaenactis alpina Alpine ChaenactisEricameria nauseosa Gray RabbitbrushErigeron compositus Featherleaf FleabaneEriophyllum lanatum var. integrifolium Dwarf Wooly SunflowerEricameria bloomeri Rabbitbrush GoldenweedEucephalus ledophyllus var. covillei Cascade AsterRailardella argentea Silver Raillardella