National Park Collection

Crater Lake National Park

America's deepest lake — 1,943 feet of impossibly blue water filling the caldera of a collapsed volcano. Mount Mazama erupted 7,700 years ago, losing 5,000 feet of its summit in a single catastrophic event. The contour lines tell the story of what was lost — and what was created.

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The Caldera

A nearly circular rim — the remnant of a 12,000-foot volcano that collapsed into itself.

Rim Village
South Rim · 7,100 ft
The main viewpoint — the first glimpse of impossible blue. The contour lines drop 1,000 feet from rim to water surface, then the lake plunges another 1,943 feet. The caldera is both a hole and a mountain.
Wizard Island
Caldera Floor · 6,933 ft
A volcanic cinder cone that erupted on the caldera floor after the collapse. Its perfectly conical contour lines sit inside the larger circular pattern of the caldera rim — a volcano within a volcano.
Watchman Peak
West Rim · 8,013 ft
The best overlook for Wizard Island. The contour lines show Watchman's position as a remnant of Mount Mazama's western flank — the old volcano's shoulder, now an observation point.
Cloudcap Overlook
East Rim · 7,960 ft
The highest viewpoint accessible by car. The east wall drops nearly vertically to the lake — 2,000 feet in less than a mile. The contour lines stack almost on top of each other.

Mount Mazama's Remains

The caldera rim preserves fragments of the original volcano — peaks that were once the shoulders of a 12,000-foot mountain.

Mount Scott
Highest Point · 8,929 ft
The park's highest peak — a remnant of Mount Mazama's eastern flank. The contour lines show it was once part of a much larger massif, now isolated by the caldera's collapse.
Phantom Ship
Caldera · 6,178 ft
A small island of 400,000-year-old andesite — the oldest exposed rock in the caldera. Its jagged silhouette resembles a ghost ship. The contour lines show it as a tiny remnant of the original volcano's throat.
Garfield Peak
South Rim · 8,054 ft
A popular rim trail destination with views across the full caldera. The contour lines from summit to lake surface trace 1,900 vertical feet — nearly the depth of the lake itself.
Pumice Desert
North Side · 6,300 ft
A flat, treeless expanse of volcanic pumice from the eruption. The remarkably smooth contour lines here contrast sharply with the chaotic caldera rim — a landscape buried in debris.

A Mountain That Became a Lake

Mount Mazama was once one of the tallest peaks in the Cascades — roughly 12,000 feet. Then, 7,700 years ago, a catastrophic eruption emptied the magma chamber below. The mountain collapsed into the void, losing 5,000 feet of elevation in a matter of hours. What remained was a caldera — a circular depression five miles across and nearly 4,000 feet deep.

Over centuries, rain and snowmelt filled the caldera. No rivers feed Crater Lake; no rivers drain it. The water is entirely from precipitation, filtered through volcanic rock. This purity gives the lake its legendary color — the deepest blue in any natural lake, absorbing all wavelengths except the shortest blues.

Our prints render the caldera from 1-arc-second USGS 3DEP elevation data. The contour lines tell a story of destruction and creation: the smooth outer slopes of the original volcano, the abrupt cliff at the caldera rim, the near-vertical inner walls, and the small volcanic cone of Wizard Island rising from the caldera floor.

Every print is rendered individually for your exact coordinates. Choose a rim viewpoint, the full caldera, or the surrounding Cascade landscape — no two prints are identical. Museum-quality prints from $29 with free worldwide shipping.

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