National Parks
Portfolio

Cover

Contents

Foreword

Parks vs Monuments

Acadia

Bryce Canyon

Carlsbad Caverns

Crater Lake

General Grant

Glacier

Grand Canyon

Grand Teton

Hawaii

Hot Springs

Lassen Volcanic

Mesa Verde

Mount McKinley

Mount Rainier

Platt

Rocky Mountain

Seqoia

Wind Cave

Yellowstone

Yosemite

Zion

Monuments

National Parks Portfolio

Crater Lake

THE KLAMATH ENTRANCE
The park is a wonderful exhibit of typical western forests in a virgin state
Copyright by Patterson

STORY OF MOUNT MAZAMA

FEW of the astonishing pictures which geology has restored for us of this world in its making are so startling as that of Mount Mazama, which once reared a smoking peak many thousands of feet above the present peaceful level of Crater Lake. There were many noble volcanoes in the range: Mount Baker, Mount Rainier, Mount Adams, Mount St. Helens, Lassen Peak, Mount Mazama, Mount Hood, Mount Shasta. Once their vomitings built the great Cascade Mountains. To-day, cold and silent, they stand wrapped in shining armor of ice.

But not all. One is missing. Where Mount Mazama reared his noble head, there is nothing—until you climb the slopes once his foothills, and gaze spellbound over the broken lava cliffs into the lake which lies magically where once he stood. The story of the undoing of Mount Mazama, of the birth of this wonder lake, is one of the great stories of the earth.

Mount Mazama fell into itself. It is as if some vast cavern formed in the earth's seething interior into which the entire volcano suddenly slipped. The imagination of Dore might have reproduced some hint of the titanic spectacle of the disappearance of a mountain fifteen thousand feet in height.

When Mount Mazama collapsed into this vast hole, leaving clean cut the edges which to-day are Crater Lake's surrounding cliffs, there was instantly a surging back. The crumbling lavas were forced again up the huge chimney.

But not all the way. The vent became jammed. In three spots only did the fires emerge again. Three small volcanoes formed in the hollow.

But these in turn soon choked and cooled. During succeeding ages springs poured their waters into the vast cavity, and Crater Lake was born. Its rising waters covered two of the small volcanic cones. The third still emerges. It is called Wizard Island.

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Last Modified: Mon, Oct 31, 2002 10:00:00 pm PDT
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