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On the drive to Crater Lake we passed a sign saying "Elk Viewing Area". Since we hadn't seen any elk in the year and a half we've lived here I said "YEAH RIGHT". Just as I said it we rounded a bend & there was this little herd of elk! |
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The Umpqua River ran along side the road |
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Lots of rocks & boulders to make it interesting |
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Driving through the park towards the crater rim. I was surprised to still see so much snow in July! |
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Here I am on the crater rim. That's Wizard Island in the background |
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Driving around the rim you get a closer look at Wizard Island |
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At points around the rim the road goes a little further away from the rim and you get a look at the rocky back of the crater |
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Amazing how the trees grow in what looks like solid rock. |
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Sunday there was no wind. The lake is so clear it acted like a mirror and reflected the mountains. |
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We decided to take the boat tour of the lake. It's only 700 feet of altitude change from the rim to the lake. Took us about 40 minutes to walk the trail down. |
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From the boat looking up! We learned Crater Lake really isn't a crater - it's a caldera. |
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Amazing how blue and clear the water is. It is mostly from melted snow and is very cold. |
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You can easily tell this is a run off area! |
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Devil's Backbone extends from the lake surface to the top of the caldera rim. |
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Wizard Island. One of the daily boat tours will drop you off for a 3 or 6 hour stay on the island if you want to hike or fish. |
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This looks like a short stump. But it is actually about 30 feet long. It's called "Old Man of the Lake," a full-sized tree that has been bobbing vertically in the lake for more than a century. |
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A small waterfall still flows - imagine what it must have been like when the snow was melting. |
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The colors of the water are so pretty! |
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The lodge perched on the edge of the rim has an awesome view! The Snowfall averages 533 inches - which is why you still see little patches of snow. |
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The lake averages more than five miles in diameter, and is surrounded by steep rock walls that rise up to 2000 feet above the lake's surface. |
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This very rocky island is called Phantom Ship. They say in foggy conditions, the island looks very much like a ship. |
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The formation of The Phantom Ship is made up of volcanic ejecta and 400,000 year old andesite lava. |
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The Phantom Ship is just the tip of a sizeable, jagged ridge below the surface which sticks up into the caldera. The rocks which form the Phantom Ship, volcanic in nature, are 1 1/2 million years old and are the oldest rocks on the lake |
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The color of Crater Lake is the product of its great depth, the purity and clarity of its water, and the way solar radiation interacts with water. |
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The Pumice Castle formation is composed of buff, pink, and orange pumice. It was formed by an eruption which occurred some 70,000 years ago |
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Pumice Castle climbs to 6,969 feet above sea level. |
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See the face looking at you in the rock? |
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This is Roundtop. It climbs to 6,919 feet above sea level. A huge chunk of rock kinda all by it's self. |
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And once the tour was over we had to climb back up again. They say it's equal to climbing 65 flights of steps. It took us 1 hour and 23 minutes to climb back to the rim. |