Crater Lake

It’s blue. It’s incredibly blue. It’s unbelievably blue. Crater Lake formed about 6700 years ago, within human memory, when a great volcano erupted so forcibly that it emptied it’s magma chamber then collapsed upon itself leaving a great empty crater. Eventually the hole in the earth filled with rain and melted snow. Nothing flows into this lake, nothing flows out. It’s deep enough for the Statue of Liberty to stand on top of the Washington Monument standing on top of the Eiffel Tower and there would still be 100 feet to spare. The surface of the lake is 700 feet below the rim of the crater and the only way down is to hike it, which we did. That was the easy part. Then we had to hike back up again! The equivalent of a 65 story building. We stayed to watch the sunset then drove through what seemed like an enchanted forest to Medford, Oregon for the night.