WATCH: Oregon lake drains down large mystery hole each spring, but where does it go?
BEND, Oregon -- An incredible phenomenon is playing out in Central Oregon right now, as it does this time most years.
A mountain lake, filled each fall and winter, is literally draining down a large hole as if it is a bath tub.
The Bend Bulletin shared video of the incredible phenomenon on YouTube in late April. That video has now been seen more than 1-million times.
As reporter Scott Hammers explains Lost Lake is just off U.S. Highway 20 near Hoodoo Ski Area.
Despite a low-snow winter — Hoodoo opened only for a handful of days this season — water carried by small streams is flowing into Lost Lake, only to disappear down a large hole on the lake’s north side.
The hole has been there as long as anyone can remember, according to Jude McHugh, spokeswoman with the Willamette National Forest, and is the result of an open lava tube, a geographic feature found scattered across the region. Lava tubes are formed when flowing lava hardens near the surface but continues to flow downhill closer to the still-hot interior. If the interior lava flows out before hardening, it leaves behind a tunnel-like structure — a lava tube — that can be open to the surface immediately following an eruption or be opened to the sky through erosion
Hammers reports that over the years people have tried to plug the tube and stop the drainage. Forest Service officials say they’ve recovered car parts, engines and other debris in the hole. But McHugh tells the Bulletin that if anyone ever did plug the hole it would probably result in significant flooding along the nearby road.
As for where the water goes, officials tell the Bulletin they don't know for sure.
But it most likely seeps into the porous subsurface below, recharging the massive aquifer that feeds springs on both sides of the Cascades.