American Adventure

Oregon (Crater Lake 2)

Now I must emphasize the amazing color of the water there. These pictures just don't express how incredibly blue the water is. Now most of the time water appears blue because of the reflection of the sky. However, that is partially the case for Crater Lake but this lake is quite different because of the composition of the water itself. Crater Lake doesn't support a whole lot of life in it. It actually didn't contain any fish for thousands of years until people started stocking fish into the lake. Sine there are no tributaries feeding the lake there was no natural way for fish to get into the lake. The only water entering the lake comes from the sky. There is also no way for water to leave the lake other than evaporation.

Here's a shot of one of the tour boats that take people around the lake.

Then one of the locals decided he wanted to get his picture taken. This chipmunk here was quite a ham but did keep his distance.

More pictures here show Wizard Island at different angles. Even with my wide angle lens I couldn't get the whole scene in one shot. However, I did use my panoramic software to stitch a bunch of images together. You can view those in the Panoramic section of my web site. Here's a few shots partially stitched together.

This next picture below was taken from the lookout tower that we hiked up. The little dot in the lake was actually one of the tour boats not far from the shore of the island.

Diamond Peak in the background here can be seen from various parks of the park.