CHAPTER X
Down the Rim to the Lake—The Boys Ski on a Crater Snow-drift in July
The two scouts were first awake the next morning. They took no more time getting dressed than the law allowed, for it was shivery cold, and then went outside the tent to wash. The sun was just coming up, and the night mists still hung around the sides of the rim and over the water of the lake, which was so still that it was exactly like a huge bright blue mirror, six miles wide, in which everything hung upside down. The water in the pails at the side of the tent had a skim of ice over it!
Bennie broke the ice and poured some water in a basin, dousing it on his face and spluttering with the cold. They went over the snow-drifts to the tap to get more water, and the snow was crusted and held them up so that their hobnailed boots crunched and squeaked on it.
“And this is July 7th!” said Spider. “Well, you thought your uncle was joshing about the radiator last night, didn’t you?”
“I sure did,” Bennie answered. “Didn’t realize what a difference altitude makes.”
Campers at the Rim of Crater Lake. Mid-July Snow in Foreground
After they had brought the water, and made a fire in the stove, the scouts went off after a wood supply, while the rest were dressing. They wandered a long way back down the slope, through the forest, and tried to imagine, as they looked back, that instead of being cut off at the rim the mountain went on up another 8,000 feet.
“I guess if it did, we’d be on a glacier here, instead of just snow,” said Spider. “Look, Bennie, at those flowers coming up within a foot of this drift! I’m going to collect a lot of flowers on this trip, and get a merit badge in botany, too. Why don’t you get after some merit badges?”
“Aw, gee, what good am I at botany and stuff like that?”