Crater Lake NP

This camera overlooks Crater Lake National Park in southern Oregon, home to the deepest lake in the United States — 1,943 feet of astonishingly blue, pure water filling the caldera of Mount Mazama, a volcano that collapsed in a catastrophic eruption about 7,700 years ago. With no inlet or outlet, the lake is fed only by snow and rain, which is why it's so clear and so intensely blue. The park sits high — the rim is above 7,000 feet — and is buried in snow for much of the year, averaging more than 40 feet annually. The full Rim Drive and most facilities open only from roughly July to October; the rest of the year the camera often shows a white, frozen world. Clear days reveal Wizard Island, the cinder cone rising from the lake. Oregon is on Pacific Time, three hours behind Hawaii. Crater Lake is Oregon's only national park. In summer, boat tours run to Wizard Island and the Rim Drive circles the entire caldera with overlooks at every turn — one of the most striking volcanic landscapes in the Pacific Northwest.