Crater Lake—Wizard Island, and over it Llao Rock
“Will you tell us after supper all about this lake, how it got made and everything?” Spider asked. “Gee, I wish I’d studied geology.”
“You’ve come to the right place to begin,” said the doctor. “But now for a camp site. Come on with me.”
Leaving the cars, they walked westward along the rim, looking for a chance to get the cars through the drifts. They could manage, they found, to run them a few hundred feet west of the hotel, along what looked like a road. There was a considerable open space between the edge of the rim and the timber, however, and to get back from the rim to the trees they had to get the camp spades out of the cars and dig a ditch through two feet of snow. At last the cars were through, and a comparatively dry spot found under some big fir trees. Here the tents were put up, with the stove between them, the cars unpacked, the beds inflated, and Dumplin’ and Bennie went after wood while Spider took the pails and went back over the snow toward the hotel for water. All the water has to be pumped up to the hotel and the camp grounds from a spring back down the road. When he returned, he reported that already a dozen more cars had arrived, several tents were going up, and there were a lot of people at the hotel.
Meanwhile Bennie and Dumplin’ had discovered that past campers had cleaned out so much of the dead wood that it was hard to find enough for a fire, especially as the woods were still full of snow and the fallen branches buried or else soaking wet. However, they rustled up enough for that night and breakfast, and preparations for supper began.
As the sun got lower and lower, the water of the lake seemed to turn a darker and darker blue, and the snow cap on Garfield, the peak just to the east, turned a lovely rose red—and Bennie put on his coat.
“What you putting that on for?” his uncle asked.
“It’s the climate,” said Bennie, with a grin.
“Well, suppose you and Dump go drain the radiators before we forget it,” the doctor laughed.