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Crater Lake National Park
Oregon’s only national park, around the deepest lake in the U.S.
About 7,700 years ago, Mount Mazama blew apart in a cataclysmic eruption, then collapsed into its own emptied magma chamber. Rain and snow slowly filled the resulting caldera, creating Crater Lake, which at 1,949 feet (594 m) is the deepest lake in the United States. No rivers flow in or out, and the lake is fed almost entirely by rain and snow, so the water stays exceptionally clear and intensely blue. The Klamath people, whose ancestors witnessed the eruption, preserve accounts of it in their oral tradition.
Crater Lake became the country's fifth national park on May 22, 1902, after a 17-year campaign by William Gladstone Steel. The park covers about 286 square miles (741 km²) of the Cascade Range in southern Oregon, including old-growth forest, pumice deserts and the caldera rim, which stands 7,000 to 8,000 feet (2,100 to 2,400 m) above sea level. The 33-mile (53 km) Rim Drive circles the lake, and boat tours reach Wizard Island, a cinder cone rising from the water. Heavy snow keeps Rim Drive closed for much of the year.