Native people definitely visited Crater Lake a long time ago, as evidence of human activity was found beneath a layer of volcanic debris deposited by the caldera-forming eruption of Mount Mazama about 7,700 years ago. Yet few have wanted to discuss the lake because it was said to be dangerously powerful. 

According to oral histories of the Makalak people (whose descendants are now the Klamath), the spirit of Mount Mazama was an underworld figure called Llao. While surveying the area around the peak, Llao became enamored of a Makalak chief’s daughter. When she declined to follow him into the underworld, he promised vengeance, and the mountain erupted. The sky spirit, Skell, protected the Makalak tribe from his own post atop Mount Shasta. Skell pushed Llao back into the underworld, causing Mazama to collapse into a caldera that became Crater Lake.

Other versions of the tale get gory, with Skell killing Llao and throwing his remains into the lake. Monsters ate most of Llao’s body, but his head was left behind, and something of him is believed to still linger around the lake. Since then, at least some of the indigenous people in the area have come to believe that the lake is too powerful to linger near or even gaze at for too long. It’s notable that the Klamath people have no legends about the waters themselves, as the lake-related stories seem to abruptly end after the destruction of the mountain.