Crater Lake National Park is located in south-central Oregon. The main feature of Crater Lake National Park is Crater Lake. Crater Lake is famous for its deep blue color and water clarity. Approximately 7,700 years ago, when Mount Mazama Volcano erupted, it exploded and then collapsed to form a caldera over 2,000 feet deep. It took about 250 years after the eruption for rain and snow to slowly fill the caldera and ultimately created Crater Lake. The island in the lake is Wizard Island. Wizard Island formed when a Cinder Cone Volcano erupted after the crater began to fill up.
Crater Lake has no rivers flowing into or out of the lake. The evaporation rate equals the rain/ snowfall replenishment rates. The lake has a depth of 1,949 feet, making it the deepest in the U.S. and the ninth in the world. I took this picture looking down the steep sides of the caldera. The blue is the lake – not the sky!
We spent three days/two nights in Crater Lake National Park. The first full day, 7/14, we were fortunate enough to secure tickets for the boat ride tour of the lake the next day, Saturday, 7/15. I will come back to that story in the next post, for now, I’ll just say, Fiona and I worked magic.
After securing our boat tickets, we took a hike up to Garfield Peak. The trail was closed shortly before the peak but, we enjoyed amazing views along the way.
One of the highlights was viewing the Phantom Ship rock.
From here, we could see Garfield Peak.
The views made taking a break even more fun.
Here you can understand why the trail was still closed. There was a huge slab of ice snow still on the trail!
After our hike, we made another short hike around a short loop.
We had to cross through more snowy trails. I was impressed by my sandal hiking family!
One last picture of our super sweet campsite! What you can’t see in this picture are the thousands of mosquitoes swarming around us! If you go to Crater Lake – take bug spray!
PS. Thanks for being patient with me as I blog a little late about my travels. At the time I’m posting this, I’m in SFO about to fly home to Tokyo. I enjoyed the past three weeks immensely. I needed an American vacation with my family and friends. And I can honestly say, by disconnecting I was able to reconnect. It did my heart good.