Crater Lake National Park is an U.S. National Park located in southern Oregon. The park encompasses the caldera of Crater Lake, a remnant of a destroyed volcano, Mount Mazama, and the surrounding hills and forests.
The lake is 1,949 feet deep at its deepest point, which makes it the deepest lake in the United States, the second-deepest in North America and the ninth-deepest in the world. The impressive average depth of this volcanic lake is due to the nearly symmetrical 4,000-foot-deep caldera formed 7,700 years ago during the violent climactic eruptions and subsequent collapse of Mount Mazama and the relatively moist climate that is typical of the crest of the Cascade Range.
The caldera rim ranges in elevation from 7,000 to 8,000 feet. Crater Lake has no streams flowing into or out of it. All water that enters the lake is eventually lost from evaporation or subsurface seepage. The lake’s water commonly has a striking blue hue, and the lake is refilled entirely from direct precipitation in the form of snow and rain.
Wizard Island is a volcanic cinder cone which forms an island at the west end of Crater Lake in Crater Lake National Park, Oregon. The top of the island reaches 6,933 feet above sea level, about 755 feet above the average surface of the lake. (Source: Wikipedia)
Established: May 22, 1902
Size: 183,224 acres
Rank: 34
#Visitors in 2018: 720,659
(September 2017) My fiance and I visited Crater Lake during a side trip we took to visit our kids in Portland. We tried to book our stay at the Crater Lake Lodge inside the park, but sadly, it was full. Instead, we stayed at Crater Lake Bed and Breakfast located in Fort Klamath, about 20 miles south of the Crater Lake National Park Visitors Center. It was a very nice place to stay with a wonderful hostess. We made up for not being able to stay at the Crater Lake Lodge by eating some of our meals and enjoying drinks there in the evening.
We left Portland and spent all day driving and stopping along the way, with our destination for the night being the B&B. We got up the next morning, had a nice home cooked breakfast and drove to the park Visitor Center. We were very lucky that we were visiting during this particular week. Just one week before, the entire Crater Rim Road was closed due to a snow storm. As it was, the West Rim Road was still closed for construction. We learned from the park ranger that we could still access the west part of the lake by hiking on the Discovery Point trail and/or on the paved road itself as long as we kept out of the way of the construction vehicles. The weather was absolutely fabulous! The color of the lake was the bluest blue I’ve ever seen. I actually didn’t mind that there were no clouds in the sky; it made it all so vibrant! As we hiked along the trail, I couldn’t help stopping at every turn to view the lake. Wizard Island, itself a volcano inside a volcano, made for wonderful photos of the lake. The lake looked so different from all the different angles and distances viewed and whether or not Wizard Island (in part or whole) was part of the composition. We arrived a bit too late in the season to take a boat tour over to Wizard Island.
We caught the sunset outside Crater Lake Lodge later that same day and then went in for cocktails and casual dining in the lobby. We then had the 20 mile drive back to the B&B.
The next day was a long and busy one. As we often do, we wanted to see as much as possible during our short visit to this beautiful park. We drove counter clockwise on the East Rim Road to the Phantom Ship Overlook, capturing photos of Phantom Ship and the lake from this new perspective.
By mid-day, we took the 6-mile detour off the Rim Road to drive down to the Pinnacles area of the park. We hiked the Pinnacles Trail to view the “fossil fumarole” formations; where volcanic gases once rose up through a layer of volcanic ash, cementing the ash into solid rock. We tried our best to capture photographs, but the very contrasty light made this difficult.
On our way back up the main East Rim Road, we stopped and hiked to Plaikni Falls. Again, the light was very contrasty, but with the help of filters, we managed passable photos to document our visit there.
We continued driving counter clockwise along East Rim Road, stopping often to capture photos. It was interesting to capture different perspectives of the lake as we circled it. Also the light was quite different from the day before as well as throughout the day.
For our evening shoot, we hiked up to the top of Garfield Peak; an ambitious 3.6 mile roundtrip hike. We wanted to be at the top for sunset, which meant hiking down in the dark followed by the 20 mile return trip to our B&B…. would have been nice to be staying at the Lodge 🙂
We got up the next morning to a fairly overcast day. Our plan was to drive up East Rim Road to Cleetwood Cove on the north end of the lake and hike down to the edge of the lake. This is where the boat tours launch from and where brave swimmers dive into the lake. We weren’t expecting to do either, just hike and enjoy yet a new perspective of the lake. Not being able to help ourselves, we stopped often along East Rim Road to take photographs. The overcast skies and early morning light made the rippling peaks of distant mountains like an abstract painting. Phantom Ship was even more beautiful in this light; it almost looked like a watercolor painting.
We hiked down the entire Cleetwood Cove Trail. I loved all the trees along this trail, many covered in brilliant lichen. I also loved seeing the lake and the surrounding mountains from this end of the lake, both at the top and at the lake level.
Our visit to Crater was quickly coming to an end as we continued our journey towards the North Entrance. Views of the lake from the North Junction were spectacular!
We loved our visit to Crater Lake. We were blessed to have such great weather and to be able to see various perspectives and moods of the lake. We would love to come back in the winter sometime.