Mount Mazama’s explosive collapse some 7,700 years ago, awesome as it must have been, lasted nowhere near as long as the peaceful splendor of the monument that survived it—Crater Lake. Rimmed by 20 miles of conifermantled cliffs, the blazingly blue waters sit 6,173 feet above sea level in a basin that plunges to 1,943 feet below the surface. Oregon’s most famous body of water is the deepest in the United States and the seventh deepest in the world .

YOU CAN CALL ME . . .
Before acquiring its current moniker in 1869, Crater Lake was known as Deep Blue Lake (1853), Blue Lake (1862), and Lake Majesty (1865).

PURE VIEW
The water is so clear that you can see down more than 100 feet and so plentiful—4.6 trillion gallons—that it absorbs all colors except blue.

ANCIENT MARINER
A fallen tree nicknamed the Old Man has been observed floating around the lake, upright, for over a century.

SCALING BACK
The lake has no native fish. Though six species were stocked between 1888 and 1941, only rainbow trout and kokanee salmon remain.

GOOD GUESS
Sonar testing in 2000 found that a geological survey of the lake’s depth conducted in 1886 was off by only 75 feet.