Crater Lake National Park

About 7,700 years ago the volcano Mount Mazama erupted and its top fell in. That left a giant bowl called a caldera, which slowly filled with water.

No rivers flow into Crater Lake. It fills with only rain and snow, so the deep, clean water shines a strong blue.

Wizard Island is a small volcano that grew inside the lake. Its cone rises about 760 feet above the water.

Tough trees like the whitebark pine grow along the windy rim. They can live for hundreds of years in the thin, cold mountain air.

Clark's nutcracker is a gray and black bird. It hides thousands of pine seeds in the ground, and the seeds it forgets grow into new trees.

The Klamath people have lived near this lake for thousands of years. They call it giiwas, which means a sacred place, and their families saw Mount Mazama erupt long ago.

So much snow falls here that the road around the rim stays closed most of the year. It usually opens by mid-July, after the deep snow melts.

A road called Rim Drive circles the whole lake. It runs about 33 miles around the top of the caldera, so you can see the water from many sides.

Crater Lake Lodge sits right on the edge of the rim. It first opened to guests in 1915, and people have stayed there to watch the lake for more than a hundred years.

The golden-mantled ground squirrel lives at the park. It has a striped back and a golden head, and it stuffs seeds into its cheeks to carry them home.