Crater Lake National Park

Crater Lake inspires awe. Native Americans witnessed its formation 7,700 years ago when a violent eruption triggered the explosion and subsequent collapse of Mount Mazama. Scientists marvel at its purity-fed by rain and snow, it’s the deepest lake in the USA and one of the most pristine on Earth. Artists, photographers, and sightseers gaze in wonder at its blue water and stunning setting atop the Cascade Mountain Range.
My wife and I moved to Oregon in 2017. Every year we visit Crater Lake National Park multiple times. We go for a day or two by ourselves or we escort out-of-state visiting family/friends to see the lake. We have rode our bikes around the rim of Crater Lake (33-mile road that surrounds the caldera) on four separate occasions during the "Ride The Rim" ride, hosted by Crater Lake National Park, Friends of Crater Lake National Park and the Discover Klamath Visitor & Convention Bureau. Ride the Rim is a pedestrian friendly event closing off East Rim Drive to vehicular and motorized traffic creating a safe space to enjoy the park on two wheels.
In June 1853, Isaac Skeeter, John Wesley Hillman, and another man were the first non-Native Americans to report sighting the lake, while on a mining trip. The lake is 5 by 6 miles across with a caldera rim ranging in elevation from 7,000 to 8,000 feet. The average lake depth is 1,148 feet and the lake's maximum depth has been measured at 1,949 feet, which makes it the deepest lake in the United States, the second-deepest in North America (after Great Slave Lake in Canada), and the ninth-deepest lake in the world.
In the summer, the weather is mild and dry, but in the winter is cold and the powerful influence of the Aleutian Low allows for enormous snowfalls averaging 463.1 inches (38.5 feet) per year and maximum snow cover averaging 11.5 feet. This snow does not usually melt until mid-July.
Due to several unique factors, mainly that the lake has no inlets or tributaries, the waters of Crater Lake are some of the purest in the world because of the absence of pollutants. Clarity readings from a Secchi disk have consistently been measured as being 120 ft, which is very clear for any natural body of water.
Crater Lake National Park: www.nps.gov/cr...
CRATER LAKE: en.wikipedia.o...
Ride the Rim: ridetherimoreg...