I had always been fascinated by pictures of the gigantic hole in the ground with the placid cerulean water and steep cliffs but had never taken the time to learn about it. So, Crater Lake National Park was on our “must see” list.
We were pushing our luck going to see the Lake this late in the season as the snow forces road and campground closures. It had snowed the week before but most of it had melted by the time we got there. Last year they had a record snowfall of 56 feet!
left and below: Severe weather takes it’s toll on the trees around the lake.
It was cloudy and cold when we arrived but the sun managed to peak out a little while we were there so that we could appreciate the deep blue color of the the water. The color is a result of pristine water and a lake depth of 1,943 feet, the deepest lake in the United States. It was established as a National Park in 1902, the fifth National Park in the country.
The lake gets so much attention that one never hears about the mountain itself. It’s name, I learned, is Mount Mazama and it is estimated to have been about 12,000 feet tall before it’s magnificent eruption 7,700 years ago. The eruption produced 150 times more ash than Mt. St. Helens and covered eight states and three canadian provinces. The eruption also emptied the magma chamber below leaving a hole for the top of the mountain to collapse into. This created the caldera with 2,000 foot cliffs that, like a kitchen sink, has since filled with water. It also reduced the height of the peak to 8,151 feet.
We managed to catch a Ranger talk about the history of tourism in the park which started with a few hardy folks hiking and riding horses to the lake and eventually evolved into a few more driving cars up poor dirt roads. The most amusing part was to hear about those driving Model T’s in the early days. The cars didn’t have fuel pumps and were gravity fed. So, when the cars got to a steep part in the road, they would turn the vehicles around and back up the rest of the way. I chuckled at the vision of a road full of Models T’s lined up and driving backwards up the road.
left: “Hurry Mommy, it’s cold”
right: The Lodge
One can now drive the 33 mile road all the way around the rim. Had we been there earlier in the day, we would have driven all the way around. But, it was getting late so we opted for a short hike by the Lodge. We didn’t get to see it but, evidently there is a hemlock tree that has been floating around the lake in a vertical position for 100 years and has been named “The Old Man of the Lake”.
Seeing the lake in person was just as dramatic as all of the amazing pictures I have seen of it through the years. Although, the most dramatic pictures have been taken in winter, I don’t know that I am hardy enough to trudge through 56 feet of snow to see it then!
“All ingenuity of nature seems to have been exerted to the fullest capacity to build a grand awe-inspiring temple the likes of which the world has never seen before,” William Steel