Throwback Thursday: Last Time at Crater Lake

All the photos must be altered. Every picture I’ve seen of Crater Lake looks unreal. Even when you go and see it for yourself, it takes some time to convince yourself that no, you mind is not playing tricks on you, that beauty is actually there!

Since I grew up about 75 miles away from the deepest lake in America, one would think that an adventurous person like me would be there all the time, right? In actuality, I only remember going three times: once when my cousin visited, once to go snowshoeing with my youth group (and everything was so white you couldn’t even see the lake, so I’m not sure if that counts), and once as my last hurrah before moving away from Oregon.

All of these pictures were taken the last time I was at Crater Lake. I went with my parents, and we drove around the entire lake and stopped at interesting and informational viewpoints along the way.

Like I said about when I went snowshoeing, wintertime at Crater Lake means lots and lots of snow. In contrast, I could probably count on my fingers the snow days I had as a kid. I suppose in Oregon, all the snow gets stuck in the mountains! As we drove around the lake, I realized there were long poles on the sides of the road. That helped people know where the road was in the winter! Even though we went in July, there is so much snow in the winter, we found piles that weren’t even melted. Of course my mom had to encourage me to play in the summer snow!

I suppose that many people out there did not study Crater Lake as intently as we did in my school, so here’s a little history about it: Crater Lake was originally Mount Mazama, a volcano that erupted and blew the top off the mountain. Over the years, the bowl shaped that was left behind filled with water, until it became the deep, blue lake that we know and love today.

There are two notable islands on Crater Lake. Wizard’s Island is the large island seen at the top of this post. My favorite one is ghost ship. Whenever I’ve been able to see the lake, I’ve been able to see this ship-shaped island, but it’s named because supposedly it has a tendency to disappear in fog.

Now that I’m back in Oregon, I really need to go to Crater Lake again. I’ve read about lots of long hikes that can take you down closer to where the lake actually is. Plus, pictures just don’t do this scenery justice! A few of my friends also want to go, we just need to plan a time that works for all of us. Hopefully we can get to it before we need snowshoes!