Old Mount Mazama

I made a brief stop at Crater Lake NP on my way to Sunriver yesterday. Enroute I transited the Pumice Desert. This area was the victim of a pyroclastic flow when Mount Mazama blew up about 7700 years ago. A massive, hot wall of ash, rock, and cinders roared down the north slope of the mountain, obliterating everything in its path. All this time later, only a few trees grow in much of the area, which still has very poor soil...mostly pumice and ash. By the way, in the distance is Mount Thielsen, a distinctive older volcano in the Cascades. Its sharp pointed summit is an old lava plug, which has remained intact as ice age glaciation and general erosion have swept away the softer rock that originally surrounded the plug. Central Oregon is full of this type of interesting geology.

I thought this image was cool, kind of abstract. This is one of the tour boats that cruises Crater Lake. It even lands on Wizard Island, and you can do a little hiking there. The catch is that to get to the tour boat you have to be able to hike down a wide but fairly steep trail to the lake level. I did it once and will repeat when I have the time. On this occasion I was just sloating out on some rocks overlooking the hypnotically blue lake, which is my favorite pastime when Im here.

The Lizard is at another power spot. He loves such locales, and having been at both Mono and Crater Lakes in less than a month was a real treat for him! While he was hangin' out a chipmunk scurried up and checked him out. Here they're both enjoying the fine view of the lake. Blow the pic up for a better view of the critters.