PHOTO OF THE WEEK: Crater Lake National Park

Crater Lake, in southwest Oregon, is well known for its shockingly blue waters. I was there to take this picture on June 8th of 2013, just as the snow was finishing its melt. Although the lake certainly looks like a crater, it wasn't formed by any extraterrestrial impact. Rather, this is the sunken hole that was once the top of a 3,400 meter high mountain. Now, all that remains is a caldera about 1,200 meters deep. The lake itself, at 592 meters, is in fact the deepest lake in the United States, with crystal clear waters reaching down toward the ancient volcanoes core.
So what happened? It seems that, following the global flood of Noah's days, the mountain began to grow in the continental unrest of the time. The continents were brand new and hadn't yet recovered from the their catastrophic division. During the Ice Age, glaciers dominated the area. However, pyroclastic lava flows issued from the growing dome and added to its flanks. As the earth started to warm and the climate became more stable, Mount Mazama grew less stable. Humans had colonized North America by this time, likely having come over the bearing straight on ice sheets during the Ice Age, they witnessed the earth-shattering explosion as Mazama blew its top -- literally. As nearly 1,700,000 square kilometres of North America darkened in an expanding blanket of ash, the local Klamath nation could only imagine that it was the result of some battle of the gods.
However, this is no home to some Llao god of the underworld but a testament to the power of the one true God. What the Klamath thought was a great struggle between good and evil (Skell and Llao) was only a fading reminder of the judgment of a single righteous God on mankind for their wickedness. How quickly we forget.