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A Hole in the Mountain

 


It is interesting what children take from a conversation. I remember when my family took a trip to see Crater Lake. I was young, maybe three or four. I did not know what Crater Lake was. It was not that far from where we lived, maybe a three-hour drive. But a three-hour drive to a three-year-old is a near eternity. Not to mention that it is hot in southern Oregon in the summertime and our old Oldsmobile station wagon did not have air conditioning. The car carried my parents and my three siblings and me. Not that I remember much of it, but I imagine the drive must have been tedious for all concerned.

In fact, I don’t remember much of the trip at all at this point, but I do remember my father’s explanation of Crater Lake. He explained to me that the mountain had a hole in it and water went in the hole and made a lake. Those weren’t his exact words, but it was something like that. Anyway, what I got out of this explanation was that there was a hole in the mountain. As we drove through all the “are we there yet,” phase of the trip, we eventually started our climb up the mountain. As the car switch-baked up Mount Mazama, I kept trying to see the hole in the side of the mountain. Every time we cleared the trees, and I could see the flank I kept asking where the hole was. I was frustrated that no one could show me the hole in the side of the mountain.

Finally, we made it to the top and I could see the grand spectacle of Crater Lake. Some 7700 years ago, Mount Mazama had a major volcanic eruption. About twelve cubic miles of material was ejected. It was the largest known eruption in the Cascade Range. Ash from the eruption has been found as far away as the Greenland ice sheet. The weakened top of the mountain collapsed in on itself, creating this gigantic “hole” that eventually filled with rainwater, making it the deepest freshwater lake in the United States.

One of the mind-boggling things for me about the eruption is that it happened 7700 years ago. People were living here then. There were native Americans who witnessed this event. This had to be unimaginably terrifying. Obviously, the ones who were too close did not survive, but there were likely some who were close enough to see that something cataclysmic was happening and lived to tell the tale. And indeed, the Native American Klamath peoples, who live in the area, have an oral history of an event where their god of the underworld battled the god of the sky at Mount Mazama (Tum-sum-ne).

Eventually someone, I don’t know if it was a Park Ranger or my parents, explained how Crater Lake was formed in a way that I could understand. But my memory still fixates on looking for that hole in the side of the mountain.

Star Liner


Comments

  1. Deb ParrJuly 28, 2025 at 11:42 PM

    May we Never lose our child like excitement for the unknown!

    ReplyDelete

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