Oregon’s mysterious ‘Lost Lake’ disappears through a strange hole every year

A mysterious lake in Oregon, in the United States, has drawn the attention of researchers, biologists and scientists over the years. What attracts so much curiosity to the “Lost Lake” at the Willamette National Forest is that every year the lake water simply disappears after being drained through a hole on the lake’s north side.

Nobody knows for sure where all the lake water goes, leaving it to a meadow between spring and summer. During the winter, it fills up again when the input from precipitation exceeds the rate of draining.

Scientists believe that this phenomenon is due to the volcanic zone where it is located, above an extinct lava tube – a tunnel-like structure created to drain lava from a volcano during an eruption.

Therefore, the water disappears through the 6-feet-wide hole, seeps through the volcanic rocks and into the subsurface.

“The lakebed begins to fill in the late fall, when the amount of rain coming in starts exceeding the ability of the lava tubes to drain off the water,” Jude McHugh, a spokeswoman for the Willamette National Forest in Oregon told Live Science. “And it continues to fill all winter long in a series of rain or snowstorms.”
With over 5 million views, a video on Youtube shows water draining away quickly through the hole, like a bathtub left unplugged. But for now, they believe there is no concern for the lake since it always ends up restoring itself after a while.