A Special Place

On the back of the Oregon state quarter is Crater Lake.  Its placement there is well deserved.

Crater Lake is a caldera, a bowl formed when a volcano collapses in upon itself.  The basin formed filled up with rainwater and snow melt, the lake's only sources of water. 

Oregon and Washington are volcanic areas.  The explosion six millennium ago that triggered the formation of the lake was fifty times the force of the devastating explosion of Mount St. Helens in 1980.

It is a sacred place to Native Americans.  One legend has it that an Indian walked about the jagged wreckage of the open depression while it was still hot and before it started filling with water.  How cool would that have been?