Crater Lake

The last stop I made with my family before we had to part ways was Crater Lake (after Crater Lake on Monday, I had to return to work and my family continued up to Bend for the rest of the week). I've seen pictures, heard about it, and even have it on my license plate, but I wasn't at all prepared for how incredible Crater Lake would be. For those that aren't familiar with it, it is basically a giant lake in the crater of what was once a very active volcano. It's five miles across and six miles wide and over 1900 feet deep, the deepest lake in the US and one of the deepest in the world. Since it's in the top of a mountain, no streams flow into it (none happen to flow out, either) so the water is amazingly clear and deep blue.

We drove and hiked to different areas around the caldera to get different views of the lake (it's so big, you really do need to see it from different places). Here's a pretty good picture of my parents at our first view of the lake.


This is one of two islands in the lake, known as the phantom ship. It may look small, but it's actually 170 feet tall and 500 feet long. This picture gives you a sense of how blue the water is.


Trey, Carsten, and I hiked down from the rim to the lake (there's only one trail that goes down to the lake, about 700 vertical feet). We went for two reasons; 1) to see the lake from up close, and 2) to jump in. The water was freezing, but we wanted to be able to say we swam in Crater Lake. Here's Carsten taking the plunge.

Here's the view we had standing on the rock before we jumped in.

Check out the large version to fully appreciate it.

Because Crater Lake is in a volcano, there are many other cool geologic features around it. The Pinnacles are large, hollow columns where steam vented up through and solidified ash on the mountain. As the surround ash eroded, only the Pinnacles remained. The one in the middle of this picture is over 160 feet tall.


The rest of the pictures we took at Crater Lake are definitely worth checking out on my flickr page.