— — a blue with nothing else to compare to.
“The deepest lake in the United States, held in the caldera left when Mount Mazama collapsed about 7,700 years ago. No streams run in. Water enters only as snow and rain falling on the rim, which is why the colour reads the way it does. Visitors stop at the first overlook and stay longer than they meant to. There is not much to say about it from the road, and most people don't try. from the studio
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
Crater Lake sits at 6,178 feet in the southern Oregon Cascades, the centerpiece of Crater Lake National Park. The lake fills the caldera left when Mount Mazama, a roughly 12,000-foot composite volcano, collapsed about 7,700 years ago in an eruption many times larger than Mount St. Helens in 1980. At 1,943 feet deep, Crater Lake is the deepest lake in the United States and the ninth-deepest in the world. The 33-mile Rim Drive circles the caldera. Wizard Island, a younger cinder cone, breaks the surface near the western shore.
The lake holds a deep cobalt because it is exceptionally clear and exceptionally deep. With no inflowing streams, water enters only as snowmelt and rain falling on the caldera, so the column carries almost no sediment. Secchi-disk readings have measured past 130 feet of visibility. The long red wavelengths of sunlight are absorbed within the deep water and the short blue wavelengths scatter back to the eye. On a calm summer day with the sun overhead, the surface reads as the most saturated blue most visitors will ever see in fresh water.
The park is open year-round, but the full Rim Drive is only open mid-summer to mid-fall. East Rim Drive typically reopens in late June or July and closes by November with the first sustained snow. The Cleetwood Cove Trail, the only legal route down to the shore, drops 700 feet in a little over a mile and is open July through mid-September. Boat tours to Wizard Island leave from Cleetwood Cove when staffing allows. Entry is $30 per vehicle in summer, $20 in winter; an annual pass is $55.