The Glorious Holy Shit at the Crater Lake
The short movie about Crater Lake that included reactions of first time visitors was sort of a spoiler to me.
"Breathtaking!"
"Amazing!"
"Awesome!"
"Wow!"
Every exclamation has been taken so my best option for a reaction as a first time visitor could only be an ejaculation:
"Holy mother of God!"
"Oh Virgin untouched!"
"Virgin most pure!"
"Glorious Holy Shit!"
Crater Lake is indeed spectacular and breathtaking. Never have I seen so much water in a couldron before. The depression that contains all the water that California residents are so thirsty of comes from an average of 44 feet of snow each year. The caldera was formed 7,700 years ago when Mount Mazama blew his top and had a meltdown.
The Klamath Tribe of Native Ameicans who lived in the area described the eruption of Mount Mazama in one of their legends. The legend seems to be the basis for naming Llao Rock or Skell Channel and coincides with geologic history of the caldera.
The Klamath legend has the characters of Llao, the spirit of the below world who lived beneath Lao Yaina, known today as Mount Mazama and Skell, the spirit of the above world and now known as Mount Shasta. There was no statelines bordering Oregon and California then. There was also no lake, just a hole through which Llao passed so he can go to the outside world. One day, Llao saw Loha, the daughter of the Klamath tribal chief and fell in love with her beauty. Loha rejected Llao because he was such an ugly dude. The jilted Llao was so angry that he swore to destroy the Klamath people with fire.
The Klamath chief sought the help of Skell who lived in the south which is now past the stateline border. Skell fought Llao's fire with snowballs and there was a lot of trembling during the fight causing landslides. Llao was really enraged and fuming and the Klamaths decided to make human offering to appease Llao. While the two fought, the tribal council decided to send two Klamath medicine men, instead of Loha, to Llao who was still mad as hell.
Skell was so touched by the Klamath's sacrifice that he vowed to do his best to help. He fought Llao's fire with rain and eventually doused him and pushed him below ground where he belonged. The hole that resulted from Llao blowing his top got filled with snow meltdown resulting to the 120-foot deep pristine spring water of distinct blue of today. The deepest point below the lake surface is 1,943 feet.The Crater Lake rim has an elevation of 7,000 to 8,000 feet. The rim rod which does not hug the edges of the caldera has a circumference of 33 miles. The Cleetwood Cove Trail leads to the lake surface where boating tours are offered. Somewhere in the West Rim traverses the PCT which links Mexican border southern terminus of 2,660 mile trail to its Canadian northern terminus.








Comments