Crater Lake National Park, Ore. – Crater Lake National Park provided an exotic backdrop for Monday’s total solar eclipse, and time for personal reflections.
Observers at Crater Lake enjoyed over 95% totality.
“This is just blowing my mind,” said Ellie Dugan, visiting from Seattle. “And now the Sun looks like the moon, because the moon has overtaken it enough – and it is so trippy!”
“It’s incredible,” added Robert Magin of Philadelphia. “To see the Sun through these glasses, something that you can see, and the moon is covering – it’s indescribable, really.”
Many of the park staff felt like visitors in their own back yard.
“I was noticing the coolness of the air,” said Interpretive Ranger Marsha McCabe. “And the changes that are happening when it’s night time in the middle of the day.”
The eclipse was a ‘first’ for 7-year-old Fraya Sjovolv of Alberta, Canada. “It’s really cool, because I never saw one in my whole life.
The eclipse brought back memories of an earlier viewing by Park Superintendent Craig Ackerman. He said, “I was a junior high student in West Virginia, and I was out on the playground with a telescope with our Earth Science teacher.”
The next time that people living in the continental United States will be able to see a total eclipse of the Sun is coming up on April 8th of 2024.
The path of totality will extend basically from Texas on through New England.
You’ll then have to wait until August 12th of 2045 for the next total solar eclipse, the path of totality will cover northern California just south of the Oregon border.
Despite fires at Crater Lake, the skies were clear for the eclipse.
Park staff say they were anticipating about 8,000 visitors.
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