page_title: Rim Drive
section_title: Access
hierarchical_section_title: Rim Drive / Access
caption_attribution_description: English: Snowblower clearing Rim Drive in Crater Lake National Park
context_page_description: Rim Drive is a scenic highway in Crater Lake National Park in southern Oregon, United States. It is a 33-mile loop that follows the caldera rim around Crater Lake. Due to its unique engineering and the surrounding park landscape, the drive was listed as a historic district on the National Register of Historic Places in 2008.
context_section_description: Rim Drive has two access points.  The south access begins at the park headquarters in the Munson Valley Historic District sixty miles north of Klamath Falls, Oregon.  The road to Munson Valley is open year-around.  However, snowfall in the park is heavy and winter storms make driving in the Crater Lake area unpredictable.
  The park's north entrance is nine miles (14 km) north of the Rim Drive junction across an area known as the Pumice Desert.  From the north entrance, it is 119-mile (192 km) to Bend, Oregon.  The North Entrance Road is closed in the fall and does not re-open until the following summer.
  In the Crater Lake area, winter lasts eight months with an average snowfall of 533 inches (1,354 cm) per year, and many snow banks remain well into the summer.  While the park headquarters and visitor center at Munson Valley and the Rim Village cafeteria are open year-around, Rim Drive is only open during the summer due to the heavy snowfall.  In most places, the road is covered by more than 20 feet (6.1 m) of snow with drifts as deep as 60 feet (18 m) in some areas.  Sensors buried in the roadway help snow removal crews locate the center of the road under the accumulated snow.
  During the summer, the National Park Service charges a $30 fee for private passenger vehicles entering the park. In non summer months the fee is $15 for private passenger vehicles. Commercial vehicles are charged between $25 and $200 depending on the vehicle's capacity.
caption: Snowblower clearing Rim Drive for July opening
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