Have you ever.....? Crater Lake National Park, OR 5-29,30

We've arrived at Crater Lake National Park and we're not seeing much snow but we have a lot of climbing to do before we arrive at the lake. We have a beautiful day and feel very lucky. Yesterday it rained most of the day as we drove. We settled into camp outside the park and decided we'd wait until today to come into the park. We spoke with some folks who had been at Crater Lake yesterday and they said the fog totally blocked their view of the lake.



Ally's getting excited as we see more and more snow on the way up to the lake.



This is amazing... look at the magnificent lake and all that snow!




There's a lot of information in the brochures put out by the parks and all of it is very interesting. Crater Lake sits in the huge caldera formed when Mount Mazama, one of the volcanos in the Cascade Range, exploded around 7,700 years ago. The Mazama magma chamber was emptied when it exploded and the volcano collapsed leaving the huge caldera. Wizard Island (you can see it if you look carefully at the photo) formed during later eruptions. Over the past 5,000 years the volcano has been quiet and the caldera has slowly filled with water from springs, snow melt, and rain. No stream runs into or out of the lake so it is a closed system. As the lake widened and deepened, evaporation and seepage balance the incoming water. Its depth varies less than 3 feet annually.


The lake is the deepest in the United States and one of the deepest in the world at 1,943 feet. Its depth helps create its magnificent color. It is so blue it is hard to describe. Well, it's not really blue. As the light goes through the water the reds, oranges, yellows, and greens are absorbed color by color. The blues are the last to be absorbed and the deepest blue gets scattered back to the surface where we see it as the color of the water.



Ally loves her new Junior Ranger hat from Lassen. It's keeping those ears nice and warm.




Now for the good stuff...Ally was eyeing the activity by the Visitor Center roof. This was her lucky day when one of the gentlemen asked her if she wanted to ride the saucer down the roof. You know the answer to that one. She flew up that roof.




Have you ever...gone saucer riding off a roof? Looks like a lot of fun.


Ally had a grand time playing in that snow. That's quite a view to enjoy on the way off the roof.





After a few climbs up the roof, and a few runs down, she was exhausted but very happy as you can see by the photo below.





After all her fun in the snow, and a little lunch to refuel, Ally finished her Junior Ranger booklet and added another badge and patch to her collection.