Gateway to Crater Lake
Oregon
About sixty miles northwest of Klamath Falls lies one of the natural wonders of America, Crater Lake, and this city is its southern gateway. Crater Lake is the deepest lake in the United States. Its depth is usually put at around one thousand nine hundred forty three feet, though surveys over the years have measured slightly different numbers depending on the method used.
Its water is famous for being astonishingly blue and clear, because the lake is fed only by rain and snow, with no rivers flowing in or out. The lake was not carved by a river or a glacier. It fills the caldera of a volcano.
About seven thousand seven hundred years ago, a towering peak called Mount Mazama erupted with tremendous violence and then collapsed in on itself, leaving a deep bowl that slowly filled with water. The Klamath people witnessed that eruption and carried the memory in their stories for millennia. Crater Lake became a national park in nineteen oh two, the fifth oldest in the country, and it sits in Klamath County, whose seat is Klamath Falls.
Many travelers pass through this city on their way up to the rim.
