I recently did a counter part to this South Rim Loop
Heading up the north rim first provided great views of Paulina Lake and the Big Obsidian Flow
Coming down the rim towards East lake, the trail quite regularly for a long time had big ant hills by the trail at regular intervals. I thought of posting them as weird cairns, but not sure they qualify
On the south side of the lakes, the Newberry Crater Trail is a bit dull, spending a lot of time following under some power lines However, the cool part of it is hiking next to the East Lake Lava Flows and into the Big Obsidian Flow
This loop wraps up by following along the Paulina Lakeshore trail for a while, which is really nice with the sun coming down at the end of a long day.
Another cool thing about this area is the wildlife. Some hikes you go the whole time without running into anything, this loop felt like I ran into the most animals on any hike I've ever done. Here's a video of the loop if you're into moving pictures.
Newberry Caldera North Rim Loop Hike 9/26/2021
Re: Newberry Caldera North Rim Loop Hike 9/26/2021
I've hiked the Paulina lake loop, I think it's one of the better lake loops around. But the rim loop, I think of that more of a bike loop since it's a lot of miles - isn't over 20 miles? But I guess some people hike much (or run) much more than that in a day.