Scenic drive past Crater Lake (mount Mazama)

After my all day hike up Mount Thiesen, at about 7PM, I needed to drive on down to someplace near Mount McLoughlin to carcamp overnight in preparation for hiking up that mountain that next day. The shortest rout looked like it was straight down past Crater lake on the west side of the lake. I was able to get a few pictures as a bonus en route to my carcampsite near Mount Mcloughlin.

Here is probably more background information than you probably want to know about Crater lake (Mount Mazama) from the best source I know...> Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Mazama

From the trailhead, heading south on Highway 138, the "rim road" branches off going straight south, whilst highway 138 continues east to join up with US highway 97 headed south.

I took the rim road to get these pictures, however I didn't realize that the rim road winds around quite a bit on the south side of crater lake, so it probably cost me at least 20 minutes. Small price to pay.

It is sort of amazing that the elevation of crater lake is over 8,000 feet, even after it has collapsed into a lake that is about 2,000 feet deep.

Apparently this stratovolcano is relatively young in geologic age at only 5,600 years of age, and it was over 12,000 feet before it collapsed into itself.

Amazingly enough, after two near misses with deer the previous night, there was a third near miss on this drive down toward Mount McLoughlin.

Fortunately this happened at 11PM and 1AM Thursday , and there was virtually no traffic, enabling me to swerve as much as I wanted / needed to to avoid all the deer. Fortunately I missed by about 2 feet this time.