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IrNinjaBob t1_iszrwss wrote

Crater Lake is such an awesome spot! One neat thing that isn’t always super obvious from the photos, is that this lake is very high up! It has an elevation of over 6,000 feet. The lake itself is also very deep, reaching depths of nearly 2,000 feet at its deepest spots. Definitely worth a visit. You can drive around the outside of the caldera to get some really stunning views of the surrounding geography.

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hurl9e9y9 t1_it05k2s wrote

You can also swim in it if you walk down Cleetwood Cove trail to the "beach" or take the boat to Wizard Island. It's chilly but also somewhat terrifying since the walls of the collapsed volcano you can see above the water also continue down at that same angle below the surface. So you can swim out ten or twenty feet and have nothing below you for hundreds of feet.

Extraordinarily pure and clear water so you can see very far in it, as well as the view of the gigantic walls around you. A good reminder of how incredibly infinitesimal we are. I've been a lot of places and seen a lot of stuff, but nothing else so far really compares to Crater Lake.

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IrNinjaBob t1_it0c9dn wrote

I've done the short yet somewhat steep hike down Cleetwood Cove trail, but didn't go swimming. Well worth it just for the views from the rocky beach. Have yet to actually boat to Wizard Island, but I imagine that would be quite the spectacle itself.

But honestly, enough can't be said about the clearness of the water for those that haven't been. The lake is entirely fed by rainfall and snow melt, with no rivers or streams feeding into it at all. So neat to see in something so incredibly large.

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hurl9e9y9 t1_it0fqb2 wrote

Also, for those interested in the measurement and study of the lake water, here is a good page: https://www.nps.gov/crla/learn/nature/research-equipment.htm

We learned about the Secchi disk, which is a black and white disk only 8 inches in diameter. They slowly lower it until you can no longer make it out and record that depth. The record is 143 feet! Slightly subjective, but it's been used since the 1860s.

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jamistoast t1_it3y9e3 wrote

Neat article! I’ve been out on the Neuston to collect the sediment trap and CTD for semi-annual reset (before 2013, obviously). My dad was an oceanographer at OSU and I think designed that sediment trap, then retired around 2013…

Anyway, I wasn’t paid (so the opportunity was unique to me because of nepotism, but tax dollars weren’t being spent on me), and got to sleep in the boat house on wizard island and scuba in the lake. Extremely cool experience, part of a small-but-not-that-small group of people to have done those things.

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hurl9e9y9 t1_it0db6c wrote

I want to go back (it's been about 7 years) and go to Wizard Island too. Cleetwood is pretty steep, but we were getting murdered by mosquitoes on the way back up. We couldn't take breaks because that's when they caught up and were incessantly ruthless. It wouldn't have been so bad if it weren't for that.

We went down Cleetwood, came back up and had a late lunch, and then went up Watchman at dusk to see the stars. Came back down in pitch black (new moon) without a flashlight. And this was when a flashlight wasn't built into phones; you had to download an app to use the camera flash as one (which is what happens now of course too, but it wasn't built into the OS of the phone I had at the time). So I was trying to download an app with almost no service....younger and dumber, but very memorable at least.

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JakeJaarmel t1_it0kt34 wrote

I camped there in September 2015 and was completely Ignorant of the altitude and froze my ass off in my 0 degree (Celsius) down bag. I was on a road trip down from Vancouver island and thought, oh I’ll just drive to crater lake for a night.

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diggertb t1_it0nfth wrote

I was there in June and there was 18 inches of snow and I wasn't expecting that. I didn't bother staying for more than two hours. Just unpleasantly cold.

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Syleion t1_it1g7xw wrote

it was an unusually wet and cold june, so yeah not surprising lol

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Allteaforme t1_it39gj9 wrote

You probably were like "crater lake more like crater LAME!"

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thumpngroove t1_it2mpr1 wrote

We visited one early Spring Day. Crystal clear weather and such a gorgeous vista! My dad remarked that it was a bit cold, and then we saw the thermometer by one of the buildings near the parking lot. It was -14 F!! A dry cold, lol.

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fuzzy11287 t1_it13g2a wrote

Since the lake is so high and the surrounding caldera even higher, it's almost impossible to see the water from outside the park. One of the few spots is the summit of nearby Mt Thielsen.

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WatRedditHathWrought t1_it1cc2e wrote

The altitude also means it opens later than most National Parks. I went there the 2nd week in June this year and it was just minimally open.

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SipOfPositivitea t1_it3g6cc wrote

Yea I got caught in blizzard conditions up there one morning (heavy snow coming sideways), then drove down to the beach and went swimming the same day.

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MjolnirPants t1_it0eufn wrote

The Deschutes County Militia dug too deep.

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chkthetechnique t1_it0qjet wrote

Glad I'm not the only one who immediately thought of Days Gone...

Also 100% didn't realize this was a real place until right now.

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MjolnirPants t1_it0rj9x wrote

I'm playing it right now, actually. On my way to check up on Boozer at the farm.

I remember seeing part of an interview with the devs, where they said they wanted to incorporate real places into the game, so after the first time I finished it, I started looking up the real-world places.

I think the part that surprised me the most were the towns. IIRC, Sherman Camp is a Boy Scout campsite, and Marion Forks is just a hotel with a restaurant and a gas station. Usually, games make towns and cities smaller, not bigger.

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bikeidaho t1_it2ec69 wrote

I live about 15 minutes down the road from Camp Sherman.

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MjolnirPants t1_it2ekju wrote

I would love if you could describe it, or even post some pictures, if you have any. The Google Earth imagery is pretty low resolution there, and frankly, Days Gone is one of my favorite games ever.

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Mindfulmanners t1_it0hl25 wrote

Bob Ross was right about pulling the green from the trees down into the blue of the water. So majestic.

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medialyte t1_it1dla9 wrote

That's right, folks, it's a baby volcano inside of a giant mama volcano.

(A cinder cone inside of a caldera, if you want to get technical.)

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Ikana_Mountains t1_it2jnfg wrote

One thing worth mentioning is that this lake is at pretty high elevation. Nearly 2000 m

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MacJeff2018 t1_it2kat1 wrote

We visited Crater Lake in July several years ago…and had a snowball fight! In July! Elevation matters.

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ToDandy t1_it3d9hk wrote

Wow! That’s wizard!

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laundry4u t1_it1hohi wrote

Insert Halo Reach main menu music

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rokhan89 t1_it1kpgd wrote

I'm pretty sure that's the spot you use HM08 Dive to get to the Seafloor Cavern.

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nkriz t1_it15wzm wrote

Getting heavy Valheim vibes.

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