Crater Lake

Today we went to crater Lake and I am still overwhelmed by its beauty. There just don’t seem to be words to describe what I saw or my feelings. We saw a film where the color of the lake was described as Safire. I honestly don’t know if that is the right word. When we first came upon the Lake, Peggy said look at the color along the edge and how it changes as it goes deeper. It’s Peacock. She was absolutely correct. I hope you can see in the picture to the right, what she saw.

Let me tell you a little of what either about Crater Lake today. The Lake fills an area about 6 miles in diameter. It is surrounded by caldera. I assumed that the caldera here in the caldera at Yellowstone were essentially from the same causes. I was totally wrong. In fact, it’s about as opposite as you can get. In Yellowstone, the explosion blew out the center of the circle and deposited debris, magma, dust along the edge of the circle making the caldera. Here at crater Lake, the magma rose around the 12,000 foot mountain venting in a series of volcanic eruptions. The venting of the magma left a void under the mountain which collapsed into the void. The top 5000 feet of the mountain crashed downward leaving a 4000 foot deep hole. Gradually, the whole filled about halfway with water, from rain and snowfall. There is no watercourse through the caldera dumping into or out of the Lake. There is one path leading down 1000 feet on the face of the cliff to the water level. We did not take that path! In Yellowstone, the magma vent remains under the surface and produces the geysers. Here, the implosion seems to have blocked most of the volcanic activity except for one volcano cone which rose shortly after the implosion and remains as an island.

Over and over again, I would say awesome! Or beautiful! View after view was so overwhelming that I began to think of the whole scene as something from a Technicolor movie or a painted backdrop for a play. I once saw a painting called Niagara Falls which made the artist rich. Frederich Church is the artist who painted in the famous Hudson Valley School and who built a beautiful home called Olana near Hyde Park, New York. I believe if any artist at that time had been able to paint Crater Lake and capture it as well as he did in Niagara Falls, that artist would have made a fortune too. Had to have lunch looking at the lake!

To say the Lake was blue is a waste of words. It was the deepest blue on any water I’ve ever seen. It had a mirrorlike surface is sometimes and had ripples at other times. It had shades of blue sometimes deeper and sometimes brighter. I give up. Words won’t do it. Try these pics. (Any artists out there ready to try their hand?)

My thanks to Judy this time. She suggested the White Birch like trees were aspens. I confirmed that with a forest ranger today. So far, Melissa and Judy have helped me. Where are the rest of you? Waiting for the right question, I hope.