Welcome
Reading edition
The superintendent and the staff of Crater Lake National Park welcome you to this area of the National Park System. We hope that your stay here will be pleasant and inspiring.
Here in this park you encounter beauty—beauty in a wonderful combination of form and substance and sparking color—great curving walls of rock and sand, green spires of fir and hemlock, and the brilliant reflections of Crater Lake. All this is a part of a remarkable volcanic story.
On this spot, a few thousand years ago, stood the mighty 12,000-foot volcano, Mount Mazama. This great mountain discharged a tremendous quantity of ash and lava, causing the mountaintop to collapse, and creating a caldera, which now contains the unbelievably blue Crater Lake. It is the central feature of this 250-square-mile National Park on the crest of the Cascade Range in southern Oregon.
A major charm of Crater Lake is that the whole lake and its setting can be taken in by the eye at one time. Yet its size is impressive. The lake is about 20 square miles in area, 6 miles wide, and has 20 miles of shoreline. The surrounding cliffs rise as much as 2,000 feet to the uneven crater rim which averages about 7,000 feet in elevation.
WILD ANIMALS
It is dangerous for you to get near wild animals though they may appear tame. Some have become accustomed to humans, but they still are wild and may seriously injure you if you approach them. Regulations prohibiting feeding, teasing, touching, or molesting wild animals are enforced for your safety.
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