Crater Lake Overview

We spent two days and change at Crater Lake National Park, and I never tired of it. We saw Crater Lake and its vibrant blues in many colors/lighting conditions and from many angles. Every time I rounded a curve or climbed a hill and got a new glimpse of the lake, I was impressed. It never lost its excitement, perhaps because it often looked different depending on where I stood.

It's the lake and the majestic and scary drive on the rim around the lake that I'll remember most.

The lake's cleanliness and depth give it its color. The lake has no inlets or outlets; it's fed purely by rain and snow. It keeps a relatively constant level because it loses water through seepage into the ground and through evaporation. Due to its clean supply of water, the lake is pristine and incredibly clear. One can see deeply into it.

Crater Lake is the remains of a huge eruption of Mount Mazama 7,700 years ago. Blowing twelve cubic miles of material into the sky, it was the largest eruption that occurred in north America in the last half a million years. (The eruption was 100 times larger than Mount St. Helens'.) With all that material gone, the remaining top of the mountain collapsed, causing the crater. The park encompasses Crater Lake and much of the surrounding area, some parts of which show other remnants of the eruption. It's a large park: 249 square miles.

The creation method means the lake is high (6000 feet above sea level). It also means the lake's rim rises high (usually 1000 feet) above the water. Furthermore, the lake extends similarly deeply beneath the water (usually 1000 feet, to nearly 2000 feet at its deepest). It's the deepest lake in the United States. (Yes, it's deeper than Tahoe.)

Crater Lake manages to keep its water volume due to the large amount of snow in this region. The area around Crater Lake is cold and snowy for much of the year, so much so that most of the park closes. After all, it gets on average 44 feet of snow each year, making it one of the snowiest areas in the Pacific northwest. The snow piles to a base 16 feet deep during the winter; many trails open only in June and July after the snow melts.

Despite the cold winter temperatures, the lake rarely freezes -- too much heat gets stored in it during the summer.

During our visit in late September, the climate was already showing its frigid side. We were camping. It was freaken cold at night. On the coldest night, with a low of 28 F, we found frost on the tent in the morning. Nevertheless, we made camping work. I wore lots of clothes when not in my sleeping bag, and my mummy bag managed to handle the climate. Daytime highs were in the 30s or maybe 40s, which was cold but not impossible weather to sight-see and hike in. Animals were still around: we saw tiny chipmunks everywhere. In addition, on the positive side, there was no rain at any point during our trip.

We mostly ate camping food: mushrooms wrapped with onions (ah, grilled onions are great), squash (sometimes chopped and cooked with peas), corn on the cob, cauliflower, leftover mushroom hash, rolls with ham and squash (the squash makes the sandwich), rolls with canned tuna and squash, plums, and bananas.

Interesting digression: there are fish in Crater Lake. Due to its method of creation, obviously they're not natural. Indeed, people introduced them to the lake around 1900. (Early in the creation of the national park system, the parks were supposed to be used for recreation, and that included fishing. Hence, they added fish to the lake so people could fish them. Ah, how different things are today!) Nowadays, as the fish aren't native to the lake, you can fish all you want with no restrictions on size, species, or anything, no permits required.

Incidentally, there is also crayfish in the lake, introduced as food for the (introduced) rainbow trout. The park rangers are currently worried the survival of other small lake-bed-dwelling creatures; the crayfish seems to be out-competing (or preying on) them.

Note to myself: I wanted to take a boat tour on Crater Lake and also thereby explore Wizard Island, but the tours had already closed for the season.