The Amazing Crater Lake

I'm a nerd and somewhere between the ages of 8 and 12, I was reading about an incredibly deep lake out west that was basically a caldera filled in with water. It didn't seem real to have a crater with that much water in it but sure enough, Crater Lake does exist and is absolutely amazing to see. I've wanted to come here for years and even though it was a ton of driving since this is very out-of-the-way, it was completely worth it.

The lake is in Mount Mazama, which erupted about 8,000 years ago and led to the collapse of the top of the mountain. After cooling, it filled in with rain and snow melt and now it's the deepest lake in the US and one of the clearest in the world. It has no inlet or outlet - all the water lost is by evaporation and all the water gained is via precipitation. Since there's no new sediment mixing it, it is very clear and an incredibly deep blue.

It snows a ton there and they don't open the full road until June (and sometimes not until July). There's still a little snow up there, which is insane to think about since it was about 75 degrees and very sunny at the top of the mountain and it has been like that for weeks.

It's hard to describe and the pictures below don't really do it justice. I think it's because from most vantage points you can take in the whole lake at once but whatever the reason, every view is spectacular.

I should also point out that we have about 50 pictures of chipmunks. They know people feed them so they just run over to you and basically beg for food. We didn't feed them but others around us did and who knew they loved pretzels and Doritos? They're basically the stoners of the animal kingdom. Anyway, they were cute (Disney kind of nailed their chipmunk cartoon characters) and Jess couldn't help herself. Enjoy!

As they say at Crater Lake, "Go ahead, feed the chipmunks - they almost certainly don't have the plague." Note: no one says this.