Rex Trulove
I spent the first 12 years of my life at Crater Lake National Park, where my Dad was a Roads and Trails Foreman. This clip of the park is less than five minutes long, but it does a pretty good job of highlighting the lake itself. Unlike many similar videos, this one is fairly accurate, though even it doesn’t tell the whole story, though it captures a lot of the beauty.
There are a few points I’d like to make before you watch the video if you haven’t already. First, there is a great deal about the park beside the astounding beauty of the lake itself. Yes, the lake is sapphire blue. Yes, it is very beautiful. Yes, it is completely fed by snowmelt and rainwater. In fact, the water in the lake is far purer than bottled spring-water.
However, if you go to the park and all you see is the lake, you’ve missed a great deal of the park. I spent a substantial portion of my youth exploring and some of the wonders of this place are not only available to everyone, many are also very close to the roads.
Second, the narrator mentions the Old Man of the Lake. This is a hemlock log that has floated upright in the lake for over a century. What the narrator didn’t mention is that the part above the water isn’t always above the water. I should clarify that. This is a very big tree log and it periodically flips over.
Third, they only showed a half-dozen animals in this clip. There are far more animals and wildflowers than the video shows.
Oh, and people don’t often swim in the lake, though it isn’t prohibited. The narrator said that the water is 50 degrees F in the summer. That is misleading. The surface temperature gets up to 50 F in the summer, but a foot or two below that, it is 42 F, year around. The deeper you go, the colder it gets, too, down to the bottom, where there are geothermal vents that heat the water at the very bottom of the lake. This lake is well over 1,900 feet deep. It is the deepest freshwater lake in the US and easily the purest.
All of that said, enjoy the video.
That is just amazing. I had no idea that lake was so deep.
It has only been in the last few decades that the bottom was even found and measured. They had to actually use a remote controlled and self-contained deep water submarine to figure out just how deep the lake is.
Oh what beautiful views to behold Rex.
Those are just the views of the lake itself, too. There are many other beautiful areas within the park.
You are very familiar with this lake. The video makes is sound fascinating and beautiful.
I’ll always call this “home”. Crater Lake isn’t a large park and there are certainly a number of parks in the region that are bigger, but I can’t think of any that are actually more beautiful or breathtaking. I admit that I’m biased.