Framed Phantom Ship
Framed between some trees in glorious autumnal sunlight, the 50m-high island known as the Phantom Ship is anything but a will o' the wisp in this shot from the Phantom Ship Overlook. It is a remnant of a 400,000-year-old volcanic dyke and makes one of only two islands inside Crater Lake, OR. The lake's surface is some 300m below my position. Note the beautifully reflected cliffs in the far distance...
Some 7,700 years ago, Mount Mazama blew up catastrophically, scattering deep ash over what are now eight US states and three Canadian provinces. The eruption is estimated to have been over 40 times bigger than that of Mount St Helens in May 1980.
Initially a typically desolate volcanic crater, it took several thousand years before water began collecting in the caldera from springs, snow and rain. There is no natural inlet or outlet for the water, which maintains a level that now varies less than 1m annually.
As local native American shamans had forbidden most of their followers from viewing the lake, it was not mentioned to Caucasians when they first arrived; it wasn't until 1853 that men looking for a gold mine stumbled across the lake.
Crater Lake was established as a national park in 1902 following 17 years of lobbying by a former Kansas schoolboy, William Gladstone Steel, who had read about it from a newspaper in which his school lunch had been wrapped.
For details on how the lake's waters are so blue, see: epod.usra.edu/blog/2011/11/blue-color-of-crater-lake.html
Framed Phantom Ship
Framed between some trees in glorious autumnal sunlight, the 50m-high island known as the Phantom Ship is anything but a will o' the wisp in this shot from the Phantom Ship Overlook. It is a remnant of a 400,000-year-old volcanic dyke and makes one of only two islands inside Crater Lake, OR. The lake's surface is some 300m below my position. Note the beautifully reflected cliffs in the far distance...
Some 7,700 years ago, Mount Mazama blew up catastrophically, scattering deep ash over what are now eight US states and three Canadian provinces. The eruption is estimated to have been over 40 times bigger than that of Mount St Helens in May 1980.
Initially a typically desolate volcanic crater, it took several thousand years before water began collecting in the caldera from springs, snow and rain. There is no natural inlet or outlet for the water, which maintains a level that now varies less than 1m annually.
As local native American shamans had forbidden most of their followers from viewing the lake, it was not mentioned to Caucasians when they first arrived; it wasn't until 1853 that men looking for a gold mine stumbled across the lake.
Crater Lake was established as a national park in 1902 following 17 years of lobbying by a former Kansas schoolboy, William Gladstone Steel, who had read about it from a newspaper in which his school lunch had been wrapped.
For details on how the lake's waters are so blue, see: epod.usra.edu/blog/2011/11/blue-color-of-crater-lake.html