50 Fun Facts About Crater Lake National Park

Crater Lake National Park is in which US state?

It is the state's only national park and, established in 1902, the fifth-oldest in the country.

Crater Lake fills the caldera of which collapsed volcano?

The mountain once stood around 12,000 feet, which would have made it the state's highest peak; the Klamath called it Tum-sum-ne.

How deep is Crater Lake at its deepest point?

That makes it the deepest lake in the United States and the second-deepest in North America after Canada's Great Slave Lake.

How is Crater Lake refilled, given that no streams flow into or out of it?

Water leaves only by evaporation and seepage, which is why the lake is among the purest and clearest on Earth.

Roughly how long ago did the climactic eruption and collapse create the caldera?

The blast was the largest in the Cascades in a million years and left a hole about 4,000 feet deep that took roughly 740 years to fill.

How much height did the volcano lose when it collapsed?

The summit fell into the emptied magma chamber; today the caldera rim stands between 7,000 and 8,000 feet.

How did the ash output of the climactic eruption compare with the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens?

Ash fell as far as the northwest corner of Yellowstone, central Nevada and southern British Columbia, and weathered into a soil called andisol.

The volcanoes of the Cascades are fed by the subduction of which piece of oceanic crust?

It slides beneath the North American Plate off the coast; hydrothermal activity on the lake floor suggests Mazama may erupt again someday.

What is Wizard Island?

It rises about 755 feet above the water and 2,700 feet above the deepest point of the caldera floor; boat tours stop there in summer.

What did William Gladstone Steel name the crater on top of Wizard Island in 1885?

The summit crater is about 500 feet wide and 100 feet deep; he named the island itself on the same trip.

A second large cinder cone, Merriam Cone, lies in the northeast of the lake. Why can't you see it?

Its smooth surface and lack of a crater show it erupted underwater as the lake was filling.

Phantom Ship, the small jagged island in the southeast of the lake, is made of rock roughly how old?

The andesite is part of a submerged older cone; the island looks like a ghostly sailing ship in fog and low light.

The Old Man of the Lake is what?

The 30-foot hemlock stump bobs vertically around the lake; carbon dating suggests the tree is at least 450 years old.

How far did the Old Man of the Lake travel during three months of tracking in 1938?

It moves fastest on windy days; geologist Joseph Diller had first proved it drifted by towing it with baling wire and finding it a quarter-mile away five years later.

What name did the three gold prospectors who found the lake in June 1853 give it?

John Wesley Hillman, Henry Klippel and Isaac Skeeters were hunting for provisions; the spot where they first saw it is now Discovery Point.

How did William Gladstone Steel first learn of Crater Lake as a Kansas schoolboy in 1870?

He did not see the lake until 1885, walking the last 20 miles from Fort Klamath, then spent 17 years lobbying Congress.

How did the 1886 USGS expedition measure the lake's depth?

They hauled the half-ton boat Cleetwood up the mountain and took 168 soundings; the deepest, 1,996 feet, was remarkably close to the modern sonar figure.

Which president signed the act creating Crater Lake National Park on 22 May 1902?

Steel's lobbying and the 1886 survey data made the case; the lodge followed in 1915 and Rim Drive in 1918.

At the 1896 Mazamas mountaineering convention, what did the assembled crowd do on the rim?

Fireworks were lit on Wizard Island; the Klamath had their own name for the place for 10,000 years.

In Klamath legend, Llao of the Below World battled which chief of the Above World?

The fight destroyed Llao's home, the mountain, a story that closely mirrors what geologists have since worked out; Llao Rock and Skell Head bear their names.

How much snow falls on the park in an average year?

Headquarters sees snow more often than any other long-term station in the state; the record year, 1950, brought 903 inches, and drifts reach 10 to 15 feet by spring.

When did the lake last freeze over completely?

Its huge depth stores heat and mild Pacific air helps; a 95 percent freeze happened in 1985. The bottom stays at about 38 °F all year.

What record clarity depth did scientists measure with a Secchi disc in 1997?

Typical readings are about 120 feet; a 2025 reading of just 78 feet raised concern that the water is getting cloudier.

Which fish thrive in the lake, which is believed to have had no native fish at all?

Stocking began in 1888 and ended in 1941; since then fishing there has needed no licence and had no limits on size or number.

What is the only way for visitors to reach the lake shore?

The 1.1-mile trail drops 656 feet at an 11 percent grade; every boat on the lake had to be flown in.

How were the tour boats on Crater Lake delivered to the water?

There is no road to the shore, so the concessionaire's boats came in by air; they stop at Wizard Island on summer tours.

How long is the Rim Drive that circles the caldera?

It climbs 3,800 feet in total and is usually fully open only from July to October because of snow.

What is the highest point in the park?

At 8,929 feet it is a parasitic cone fed from Mazama's magma chamber; from the top you can see the whole caldera and more than 100 miles.

Llao Rock on the north side rises how far above the lake?

A 1.3-mile trail from Rim Drive reaches its summit; the lodge on the opposite rim sits about 1,000 feet above the water.

The Watchman Peak trail ends at a historic structure built in 1932. What is it?

From the summit you can see Mount McLoughlin, Mount Thielsen, Union Peak and the Klamath Basin.

Which long-distance hiking route running from Mexico to Canada passes through the park?

The 2,650-mile route crosses the park's 50,000 acres of old-growth forest.

The Pinnacles, tall spires south of the lake, formed how?

The 200-to-300-foot ash deposits stayed gas-charged for years; fumaroles hardened the vents and the loose ash around them washed away.

Why is the ash-covered desert north of the lake still almost bare of plants millennia after the eruption?

The thick layer of pumice and ash was blown north from Mazama; regolith with almost no nutrients makes a hostile seedbed.

Crater Lake Lodge opened in 1915. Why was it closed abruptly in 1989?

Cables had already been strung between the walls to stop them bowing; a $15 million rebuild reopened it in May 1995.

What happened to the park and its lodge during World War II?

Visitation boomed after the war, but the lodge operator did little more than basic maintenance for decades.

In which year did the US Mint release the state quarter that shows Crater Lake on its reverse?

Since 2002 the lake has also been on one of the state's regular licence plates, with a surcharge that supports the park.

What was the volcano's approximate height before its collapse?

That would have made it the state's highest peak; the Global Volcanism Program now lists it at 8,157 feet.

How many young cinder cones does the park contain that still keep their classic shape?

About 11 more lie just outside the boundary; geologists still debate whether they were parasites on Mazama's magma system.

Which of these mammals lives in the park?

Bobcats, martens, pika, pronghorn, black bears and beavers share the forests; Clark's nutcrackers and Canada jays work the rim.

The Klamath name for Crater Lake is what?

Tum-sum-ne was their name for the mountain itself; the people witnessed the eruption and kept it alive in legend.

Park superintendent Steel was removed after three years. Which of these was one of his development ideas?

He also imagined roads around the lake itself and out to Wizard Island for cars, and had the first superintendent ousted in the 'Crater Lake Rumble'.

What is the average surface temperature of the lake through the year?

The bottom holds steady near 38 °F; the lake's depth acts as a heat reservoir that traps sunlight.

How large is Crater Lake National Park?

That is about 286 square miles of caldera, flanks and forest; the lake surface sits at 6,178 feet.

For how long was the Cleetwood Cove Trail scheduled to close for repairs from 2025?

Erosion from heavy foot traffic was the problem; the trail first opened in 1960.

Where does Crater Lake rank in age among US national parks?

Established in 1902, it remains the only national park in Oregon.

In which year did all fish stocking in Crater Lake come to an end?

Stocking had begun in 1888 in a lake thought to have had no native fish at all.

In which year did the Cleetwood Cove Trail, the only path to the shore, first open?

It drops 656 feet at an 11 percent grade over 1.1 miles to the boat dock.

Which extinct volcano in the park's southwest corner survives mainly as a large volcanic plug?

Timber Crater, in the northeast corner, is a shield volcano topped by two cinder cones.

Only which Canadian body of water is deeper than Crater Lake in all of North America?

By maximum depth it ranks eleventh in the world, though it is often cited as seventh when subglacial Lake Vostok and others are excluded.

Roughly how far across is Crater Lake?

The caldera rim around it stands between 7,000 and 8,000 feet above sea level.