Day 2: Crater Lake, or 'The day that Geology seemed almost sexy!'

Crater Lake was my mom’s idea, but I’m never one to turn down a trip to a National Park I’ve never been to.  So, today’s the day—our epic adventure to Crater Lake!

After a reasonably early night, we bounce out of bed, cash in on our free breakfast of many splendored starches (and hard boiled eggs), pack up the car, and are off!  The trip from Klamath Falls to Crater Lake takes about 1.5 hours.  We don’t mind—the scenery on the way looks like this:

Yes, we love us the cows.

We reach the semi-welcoming arms of the National Park gate around 10 a.m. and proceed immediately to the Visitors Center to…wait for it…watch a 22 minute TV program about Crater Lake!   (Is that irony?  I’m not sure.  Alanis has confused me so.)  After watching the orientation video, and buying some postcards, we drive the last few miles to the rim of the Lake.   Just so’s you know, it looks like this:

Is this amazing or what?  Quick geology lesson-- this lake is not in a crater but in a caldera, a cauldron which has formed by a collapse of land inside a volcano due to a volcanic eruption.  About 7,700 years ago, the mountain formerly known as Mount Mazuma erupted so gigantically that it cracked around its entire diameter, emptied out all the magma chambers in its belly and then fell in on itself.  It took about 500 years for rain and snow to create the lake we see today.  It's considered the clearest lake in the entire world (yes, they measure these things, and after today, I know how they do it!) and the second deepest lake in North America at a depth of over 1900 feet.  The island you see in the middle is actually a volcanic cone, which is delightfully named Wizard's Island.  

We have a grand day-- we treat ourselves to a two hour trolley tour around the entire rim to learn interesting facts such as the above and take lovely photos such as the above; we eat lunch overlooking the lake, and, as a bonus, I knock out the VERY steep trail to the water and have the ultimate Crater Lake experience—I swim in the lake!  

Um, it was very, very cold.  

Enjoy our pics!!  PS—the last is from lovely and quaint Bend, Oregon, our home this evening.  I better get some sleep--we've got an 11 HOUR DRIVE to Jackson, WY, tomorrow!