Crater Lake

Friday we visited Crater Lake, walking by the rim, and driving the circumference. The lake is so striking visually it is hard to resist taking many, many photographs. Here's one that shows some lake as well as some of the ash-covered slopes by the volcano's explosion.


Next one shows some cliff in the forground, the lake of course, and the far shore strewn with volcanic ash. Although the major eruption was 7,500 years ago, much of the shore remains uninhabitable even for trees.


...And detail of the shore:

Next, a view across the lake - note the blue color remains strong even under a cloudy sky. According to the park rangers, the water is exceptionally clean - there are no streams carrying sediment or pollutants into the lake (all run off flows away, down the outside of the volcano), instead the lake is filled by the huge quantity of snow (forty to sixty feet) that falls directly into the water each winter.

Deep Thought and Little Starlet by the lake.

And finally, no post about Crater Lake could be complete without a cute ground-squirrel picture: