Editorial: An Appraisement
By Dr. C. G. Ruhle, Editor
Undoubtedly most people are initially attracted to Crater Lake National Park by the extraordinary beauty of the lake. This is expressed particularly in its Parriah blue color, which is not exceeded in brilliance, depth, and intensity by other bodies of water and which contrasts with a landscape especially suitable for its delineation and emphasis. From favorable sites on its singular setting on the truncated summit of a volcano, is presented an expansive outlook of dense forests, pumice waste lands, dark ranges, and high, solitary peaks.
The lake and its immediate surroundings form an infinite combination of pleasurable sense impressions arising from the symmetry and harmony of color, form, pattern, and sound, each acquiring significance by the intimacy of association together. The steep, variegated crater walls center attention on the lake and furnish a frame to delimit the picture and enhance its charms. The graceful green clusters of mountain hemlocks, themselves of exceptional charm, accent sharply the ultramarine color, and while acquiring emphasis by projection against it, act as effective borders for vistas of the lake. Cloud patterns cast moving shadows on the lake, and the varying light affects changes in the reflections of the enclosing cliffs. Countless wind flurries sweep across the basin and stir ripples of wavelets in sharply defined paths, as if created by jets of air.
To complete the picture, put in this framework a magnificent abandon of colorful wildflowers, open, park-like stands of Hudsonian forests, gnarled and wind-tortured veteran trees, desperately clinging to existence or succumbent to the vicissitudes of their home, tortuous rocks fashioned in the furnace of a volcano, and a benign salubrity of climate resulting from a combination of the crispness of the mountains and a suavity of the nearby Pacific shores.
In winter all these are wrapped with or completely buried under a score or more feet of snow, that softens the forms and imparts an enchanting aspect to the landscape. This is the paradise for the skier, but just as many come to see what great change winter has wrought, in the beauty of the lake and its surroundings.
Sublimity, power, and orderly operation are expressed in this creation. As practically all who come are impressed by its beauty, so few are uninfluenced by the significance of its story of origin as acquaintance grows. In this instance, one deals with the evolution of a landscape by age-long operation of forces generated from the power and energy of the inner earth. Although the visual beauty is enough in itself, it gather significance and emphasis only as the story of its genesis and structure are apparent. Crater Lake focuses attention on the realities of a landscape.
