Mount Scott

Crater Lake from Mt. Scott

  • Moderate
  • 5 miles round-trip
  • 1250 feet elevation gain
  • Open mid-July through October


Mt. Scott’s lookout tower is the only place where hikers can fit the whole breathtaking sweep of Crater Lake into an average camera viewfinder. And although this is a major mountain—tenth tallest in Oregon’s Cascades—the trail is so well-graded that even families with children sometimes tackle it.

Heavy winter snows make the Rim Drive near Mt. Scott the last road in Crater Lake National Park to open each summer.

If you’re driving here from Medford or Klamath Falls …

At the summit you’ll find a two-story stone-and-frame lookout. Built in 1953, the lookout replaced a similar stone cabin from the 1920s. To the north, look for Mt. Thielsen’s spire and the distant Three Sisters. As for Mt. Scott, it honors Levi Scott, an 1844 Oregon Trail pioneer who founded Douglas County’s Scottsburg and helped scout the Applegate Trail to Southern Oregon.

This chapter taken from the book 100 Hikes in Southern Oregon.

Mt. Scott from the Rim of Crater Lake