July 2000 - Crater Lake Trip

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Panoramic view of Crater Lake.  Geologists believe that the mountain used to be much taller, about 14,000 feet high (like Mt. Shasta).  There was a massive eruption about 7,000 years ago, and when the chamber underneath the volcano emptied out, the top of the mountain collapsed into itself.  The resulting six-mile-wide caldera filled with water, and over time, smaller eruptions built up the island volcano, Wizard Island, that you see on the left of the lake.