I have been meaning to come to this park for a decade, and it just hasn't happened. I'm glad I finally made it. It is a beautiful place to be, and you really don't get the same experience looking at photos. Right now, the East rim is shut down for the next few years, to repave it and make it safer.
If you want to be able to see inside the visitor center, which has more educational material, that is only open between may and August, so we missed it. There is a park ranger on hand if you have questions or want to get more information, but he was very reluctant to answer any questions. I found this odd as that is the reason he stands there, next to the visitor center.
Dogs are allowed on leash as long as they are well-behaved. Unfortunately, while we were there, there were a couple of older ladies who had wire-haired terriers of some kind, who were dog vicious... even if on leash. Our dog tripped over herself, trying to get away when they lunged at her, and the older ladies clearly were not in control and struggled to pull those dog aggressive terriers back physically.. I could hear that they were using shock collars, but the dogs were ignoring it. I was very disappointed to see the park rangers did not intervene or say one word to the ladies with the vicious dogs.
There are banded chipmunks running all over the place, and they will try to steal your food from you.
Gift shop is all China important junk. As is typical, it is all extremely overpriced. The bathrooms are outside of the gift shop in a building by themselves next to the paved walkpath with the viewpoints of crater Lake. There is also an interpretive area giving you more education about the area, the lake, and all the volcanoes in the area, down a steep, paved decline, and some steps. I found out that the center has been there since nineteen-thirty, so some of those steps are rather uneven, and they can be a trip hazard, as some of the patrons experienced heading back up.
Overall, it was a fun and interesting place to see once.