The lobbying efforts led by Steel against the potential breakup of the Cascade Range Forest Reserve were channeled through the Mazamas, a mountaineering club that he had organized in 1894. A preliminary organization was formed and on July 17, 1894, some 350 persons met at Steel’s ranch on the south slope of Mount Hood to hold a campfire. Two days later the club, named after a vanishing species of mountain goat, was formally established on the summit of Mount Hood by some 197 persons who had participated in the ascent. Thereafter, Steel used the club as a vehicle to champion the preservation of the forest reserve against the depredations of timber companies, sheepherders, and land developers. Representing the executive council of the Mazamas, Steel went to Washington to urge Congress and Department of the Interior officials to take more stringent measures to protect the natural resources and scenery of the reserve.
In an attempt to promote preservation of the reserve the Mazamas at Steel’s suggestion held a summer outing and mountain-climbing excursion at Crater Lake in August 1896. The trip had the nature of a scientific expedition, since a number of professional men were invited to join the group. These included C. Hart Merriam, chief of the U.S. Biological Survey; J.S. Diller, geologist of the U.S. Geological Survey; Frederick V. Colville, chief botanist of the U.S. Department of Agriculture; and BartonW. Evermann, an icthyologist with the U.S. Fish Commission. Some fifty Mazamas joined these men on the crater rim in mid-August, along with several hundred individuals traveling by wagon and on foot from Ashland, Medford, Klamath Falls, the Fort Klamath Indian Reservation, and the nearby army post at Fort Klamath. Guided nature walks and campfire lectures by the scientists on the flora, fauna, and geology of the region occupied the group’s time. A meeting of the executive committee of the Mazamas was held in the crater of Wizard Island. The excursion culminated in the christening of “Mount Mazama,” the mountain containing Crater Lake, with appropriate ceremonies on August 21. [32]
The most important result of the excursion was that each of the scientists eventually recommended passage of a bill creating Crater Lake as a national park. Their arguments were made on the basis that the area was a natural wonder favorably situated for a healthful and instructive pleasure resort; potentially valuable for scientific study; a potential contributor to the economic prosperity of the region; and too susceptible to forest fires and worthy of greater care than it was receiving as a forest reserve. [33]
Following the 1896 excursion, the Mazamas began publication of a periodical Mazama that avidly supported national park status for Crater Lake. In 1897 Earl Morse Wilbur published an article in the periodical heralding the lake as one of “the seven greatest scenic wonders of the United States.” In the article he described the three main routes to the relatively inaccessible lake. The shortest route led from the Southern Pacific Railroad at Medford and followed up the Rogue River Valley. A second route, known as “the Dead Indian Road,” proceeded from the railroad at Ashland, passing by the Lake of the Woods and Pelican Bay on Klamath Lake. The third route left the railroad at Ager, California, and proceeded through Klamath Falls to Fort Klamath where it joined the Dead Indian Road. Wilbur went on to list four things that needed to be done to make Crater Lake a more popular resort:
But to make Crater Lake more popular as a resort for tourists and other visitors, much must yet be done to make it more easy to go there and more comfortable to stay. If it had the improved turnpikes, the easy stages, and the comfortable hotels which have made it easy for visitors to enjoy the grandeur of the Yosemite Valley without great fatigue or discomfort, Crater Lake would gradually and rapidly become recognized as Yosemite’s great rival on the Pacific Coast. When the routes of approach have been improved, when a plain but comfortable hotel has been built, when an elevator has been constructed so that one may descend to the water without great exertion, and when a steam launch has been placed on the Lake, the four things will have been done which must be done before Crater Lake can expect to be visited by any considerable number of people from a distance. Perhaps the first step in this direction would be to have the Lake and its vicinity set aside as a National Park. . . . [34]
During the August 1896 expedition to Crater Lake Barton W. Evermann conducted research for the U.S. Fish Commission, the results of which were published the following year. While the lake was found to contain no fish, he reported favorably on the quality of the water and its potential for fish food. He noted that small crustaceans flourished in the water and salamanders occurred in abundance along the shore. Several larval insects and one species of mollusk were also found. He noted that the level of the lake sank at the rate of one inch every five to six days, depending on weather conditions. The temperature of the water at different depths was taken as follows:
Surface – 60°
Depth of 555 feet – 39°
Depth of 1,043 feet – 41°
Depth of 1,623 feet (bottom) – 46°
