Day 3 Crater Lake, OR

Wednesday, June 4, 2015

Today the weather is clearing.  It is supposed to be clear at Crater Lake by 10am to 11am, so we decided today was the day to go to Crater Lake.

Can you believe this is real!?!  We arrived about 10:30am and there were very few clouds and no breeze.  Absolutely awesome!!

Look how clear the reflection is.  You can even see the reddish color in the mountains reflected on the water.

This was the wildlife we saw at Crater Lake.  It is not a chipmunk.  It is a Golden Mantled Ground Squirrel.  The fur under the neck and down the belly was golden color.

This is a cool looking viewpoint.  However it is closed due to snow still covering the walkway to it.

We spent several hours around the lake.  It was so magnificently beautiful.  Only a beauty God could create.
The info signs told us it looked so blue because the water absorbed the red, yellow and green wavelengths.  However, the blue wavelength was reflected back, so that is what we see.

This is another part of the lake.  Crater lake is about 6 miles long at the longest point.  It is also the deepest lake in the US at 1943 feet deep at the deepest point.

Like I have flower pictures, Tic takes pictures of dead trees.  

As the day worn on, the clouds increased and so did the breeze.  In this picture you can see a thin layer of ice forming on the top of the water.  We noticed that when the clouds covered the water, that area of the water would freeze slightly.  As soon as the sun hit that spot, the ice would melt.
We read that the temperature of the surface water was probably 32 degrees. 

This is a Clark's Nutcracker.  It is very prominent at Crater Lake.  They crack open whitebark pine cones eating some of the seeds and burying others for later.  In this way, they plant new trees.

Due to snow accumulations the east side drive of the lake is closed.  Also the drive to the Pinnacles was closed.  The Ranger told us it was still early in the season.  We decided to take the west side drive and exit the north entrance.  

This picture is taken as we headed west.  It seems like every few feet the view was slightly different and we would take more pictures.  I did really good and only have 15 pictures in this post.  The reflections are really neat on this side of the lake also.

In this picture you can see the ice on the water in places.  It was interesting to watch it change in just a matter of seconds.

This island in Crater Lake was called Wizard Island.  It is a small volcano that formed after the lake started filling with water.  Did you know after Mt. Mazama erupted it collapsed in on itself and Crater Lake formed from centuries of rain and snowfall.  No streams run into the lake, so very little sediment clouds its pure waters.  Notice how clear the water is.  Notice the green color in the shallow water. 

They have measured clarity to 143 ft.  Clarity is measured by determining the lowest depth an 8 in. black & white Secchi disk can be seen by the human eye.

On the far west side of the lake we found these flowers growing out of the rocks.  Unusual.

We stopped in the parking/viewing area at the bottom right of this picture  It was nearly 1pm so we decided to have our picnic lunch here.  We could see the lake AND this huge rock structure with a flat top.  Interesting.

This short video was taken from out lunch spot.  It is a good view of the whole lake.

We left Crater Lake National Park.  I'll post the rest of the day in the next post.