Crater Lake

Tickets for boat tours of Crater Lake are somewhat more difficult to obtain than hen’s teeth. But this particular chicken is beaming a pearly white smile 😃

With the majority of tickets released 24 hours before departure (to the minute), I have spent considerable effort frantically refreshing the boat company web page whenever the next departure was about to leave. Given that tickets typically sell out within 5 minutes of release, it really is a race to complete the checkout process as quickly as possible. Fortunately, after 50+ days of daily writing, my thumbs now move in a fiery blur across the keyboard. Of course, it has probably reduced their useful lifespan by decades, but it did enable me to bag a boat ticket for today!

Having opted for the longest available tour of 5 hours (2 boat tour, 3 exploring Wizard island), this essentially wiped out the whole day, especially when adding transfer time to the boat launch area. It also meant that I really should have packed a notepad to take notes as the tour was fascinating, but information rich. The highlights which I can still remember:

• Mount Mazama erupted approximately 8000 years ago, firing ash 30 miles into the air, which spread all around the globe. Having erupted, it collapsed inwards, and over the next 500 years slowly filled with water, forming the caldera and lake, which is now referred to as Crater Lake
• People were already living in the area at the time of the eruption
• With a maximum depth of 594 m (1,949 ft), it is the deepest lake in the USA
• A huge quantity of water leaks out of the lake each day, and nobody has ever definitively worked out where it goes (most likely the underground lizard person empire – the Vance-ians). Fortunately, this loss and evaporation are balanced by yearly snow melt.
• Wizard Island is a cinder cone volcano. So essentially a volcano within a volcano. It was slowly formed after the main eruption by continual emissions of ash, which raced against the rising waters, before winning the race by approximately 90 feet.

The remainder of the tour content is a little mixed in my brain, but featured a lot of history and interesting geology.

Other notable occurrences were:

• Dunking my head in the water while swimming and immediately losing my sunglasses. While far from elegant, I can fortunately still retrieve objects from under the water, especially when visibility is so perfect. Thank you childhood swimming lessons.
• Also swimming in the crystal clear waters off Wizard Island in Fumarole Bay.
• Hand feeding a particularly bold chipmunk several Cashew nuts. I had to cut him off after the first few to protect his sodium intake.

The photos show nicely the main appeal of the boat trip though. Not necessarily the information, but for the amazing views of one of America’s natural marvels.