***previous*** — ***next***
1897
1897 J.S. Diller’s first account of the geology of Crater Lake appears in the NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC, volume 8. Diller estimates that the level of the Lake, during the summer, drops 0.0125 feet each day.
1897 Will Steel travels to Dyea, Alaska, during the gold rush, where he organizes mail service and establishes an express service to carry gold dust and money to and from the Yukon gold fields. Steel returns to postal work in Portland in 1900.
August 1897 Taking our alpenstocks we ventured down the zigzag trail, which consists of steps cut in the rock, “tacking” back and forth to make the descent as easy as possible. The distance down to the water at this point is nearly 2000 feet, vertical measurement. We saw a notice on the trail, reading, “At Work on Trail,” and about two-thirds of the way down we came to [the] picks and drills of Messrs. Stubbs & Peterman, owners of the only two boats on the lake. They were improving the trail, hoping that more visitors to the lake would descend to the water, so they would get the usual “4 bits” to row each one to the island and back, which is cheap enough, considering that it takes 40 minutes to pull across. They will not rent their boats, but will row parties wherever they wish to go, at reasonable charges. Reaching the water in safety we were soon speeding over the deep blue water to the island. This beautiful sheet of water, of an ultramarine blue, graduating into turquoise green at its edge, set in a mountaintop and encircled by such stupendous cliffs, forms a picture, which, in grandeur and beauty, is rarely equaled and I am sure never surpassed. We landed at the southeast side of the island, and while our boatmen with two boats waited, we climbed to the top. The cone is so steep and shelly that the ascent is very difficult. From the rim of this cone the beauty and majesty of of the scene are indescribable. Ordinarily the water is very still and mirror-like, reflecting an inverted image of the surrounding cliffs in detail. But sometimes, when the wind blows hard, it becomes, as our old boatman expressed it, “middlin’ lumpy.” Passing to the left we walk around the rim of this crater, pausing now and then to roll great rocks down the precipitous sides, watching them bound and crash down to the water. On the east side [of] the crater we found the record book of the Mazamas which we examined and then wrote the record of our trip. Passing on around to the south, or where we started, we one by one slid down the snow bank some 200 or 250 feet, and stood in the bottom of what was the last smoking chimney of a once-mighty volcano.J. T. ABBETT.EUGENE, OR., Aug. 19, 1897. Warren Republican, Williamsport, Indiana, September 2, 1897, page 4
Winter 1897-98 E.I. Applegate “suspects” that Crater Lake was frozen over when the temperatures at Fort Klamath reaches a minus 42 degrees F.
***previous*** — ***next***
***menu***
