A 7,700-year-old eyewitness account of a volcanic collapse, still being told
Klamath tradition holds that Llao, the spirit of the underworld, and Skell, the spirit of the sky, fought over the mountain, and that Llao was driven down and the mountain fell in on top of him. Geology agrees on the event: Mount Mazama erupted catastrophically about 7,700 years ago, threw ash from California to Saskatchewan, and collapsed into the caldera that now holds the deepest lake in the United States at 1,943 feet. Klamath people were living here and watched it happen, and the story has carried that eyewitness account for seven millennia, which makes it one of the oldest surviving descriptions of a real geological event in the world. Told with respect as living Klamath tradition. PUBLIC national park, about two hours from Bend.
Other places on the map within a couple of hours of here.
