A few days spent upon the rim and in a launch upon the lake will give glimpses of world-building features and nature-history. Morning is a good time for a journey around the lake. At no point is there a beach. The steep walls descend and plunge into the water.
In the lake near the west shore is Wizard Island. It is a perfect little volcano—a crater within a crater. Although a few pines are growing upon it, the island's lava and ashes appear as if just cast from the internal furnace. It probably was formed after the collapse of Mount Mazama. Lava, cinders, and tiny water-filled crater appear strange mimicry. The island rises several hundred feet above the lake-surface, and its crater is eighty feet deep. The island is a good view-point at noon, at evening, or when the blue cold crater glows and sparkles with the reflected fires of a million fiery worlds.
Phantom Ship, near the southeast shore, is a volcanic island masted with rock-spires. It has scattered trees. From a number of points of view it has the appearance of a ship, but under certain lights it blends so completely with the walls behind it that it vanishes.
The forests are magnificent. Among the trees on the rim and on Wizard Island are noble fir, alpine fir, mountain white pine, Douglas spruce, alpine hemlock, and lodge-pole pine. Sheep-pasturing in former years wrought havoc with the wild flowers, of which there are numerous varieties. There are many kinds of wild birds and wild life. While there are other scenic attractions, the supreme one must ever be the lake of marvelous blue and its rugged, fire-tinted walls. In the ruined caldron where red fire and black smoke wildly mingled, blue water lies in repose.
On June 12, 1853, a number of prospectors, led by John W. Hillman, discovered Crater Lake. Though not interested in scenery, they were aroused by this gigantic blue gem in its rough volcanic setting.
In 1885, William G. Steele began the campaign which finally won this National Park. This campaign went through numberless vicissitudes and lasted seventeen years, the Park having been established in 1902.
In 1888, Steele carried a number of trout in a can upon his back for more than forty miles. These trout were placed in the lake and grew rapidly. Since then it has been repeatedly stocked by the Government. Nowhere else that I know of can a fisherman catch a trout and clearly watch its every effort many feet under the water, as it tries to run away with or escape from the cruel hook.
This Park is in the heart of the Cascade Mountains in southern Oregon, a short distance north of the California line. It has an area of about two hundred and forty-nine square miles. Mount Thielson, Diamond Lake, and other near-by attractive features might well be added to the territory of the Park.