I had a 2 day pre-paid reservation to camp at Mazama Village at Crater Lake and was super excited since it was going to be my first time to the National Park. The trip was in August, which can be an unpredictable time for wild fires in the area, so before we left Portland to make the drive, we checked to make sure that everything was open (cell signals aren't great outside of the I-5 corridor). 

By the time we reached the northern entrance to Crater Lake several hours later, we learned that the entrance had been shut down that afternoon because of smoke and fires in the area. We had to turn around and make our way to the Southern Entrance of the park which is at least 2 more hours of driving away. We were not able to get all the way to the Southern Entrance of the park before sunset, so we had to get another campsite for the night. The entrance to the National Park was not manned because it was closed for fire, and there is no cell signal in any of this area, so we could not call the park.

In the morning, we drove the rest of the way to the southern entrance and to the Mazama Village campsite to check in for our second day of camping. The ranger could see our confirmed paid reservation for both days, but they would not allow us to check into our campsite because we had no-showed on the first night. We explained the situation of the park entrance closure and they know that there is no way to contact them from the area, but they would not make any exception. I would have understood if they had given our site away when we had not showed up, however the campground was not full because of the fire situation and the site we had paid for was vacant. They offered us the campsite we had already paid for, but wanted us to pay again in order to occupy it for the night. I was not willing to pay an additional $25.50 on top of the $56 I had already paid and lost to stay at the campground. We left the park and drove somewhere less smokey to visit. 

The actual campground looked just fine and had good amenities as you'd expect of a national park, but this was a terrible experience.