Crater Lake An Active Volcano

For 400,000 years, Mt. Mazama built up from thick lava oozing from volcanic vents. Glaciers formed and receded.  Then 7,700 years ago a violent skyward eruption and underground magma chambered collapsed the 12,000 foot Mazama in an estimated 2-3 hour period making the deep caldera. The fallout of ash and pumice and effects of the eruption covered vast areas in what is now Canada and the US.  Archaeological and Cultural (Oral Story Traditions) evidence suggests ancestral tribes to the Klamath Indigenous People witnessed the cataclysmic destruction. The Native American stories today center around the spiritual power of the lake which took centuries of snow and rainfall to fill. A small volcano erupted and Wizard Island appeared. Mazama sleeps but hydrothermal vents as far down as 1943 feet attest to the fact that Crater Lake is still active and considered at least the 10th most dangerous Volcano in US.
Only two other places in America have brought me to tears, Bryce Canyon and Mt. St. Helen's.  Why is the water so blue? 

See the next blogg which will also tell the story of the Whitebark Pine and Clark's Nutcrackers.