A photo of Wizard Island

This view from the Rim Village area on Crater Lake's south rim shows Wizard Island, a volcanic cinder cone that built up in the caldera after the massive eruption about 7,700 years ago that destroyed Mount Mazama. Llao Rock is the massive cliff on the north rim of the lake (to the right of Wizard Island). . The lake is a closed basin -- it has no surface outlet. The lake water in considered some of the purest in the world (see Klimasauskas and others, 2002; Ramsey and others, 2000).