The Book of the National Parks Part 15

During all these days and weeks of pleasure and study, the vision of ancient Mount Mazama and its terrible end grows more and more in the enlightened imagination. There is much in the conformation of the base to justify a rather definite picture of this lost brother of Hood, Shasta, St. Helens, and Rainier. At the climax of his career, Mazama probably rose sixteen thousand feet above the sea, which means ten thousand feet above the level of the present lake. We are justified too in imagining his end a cataclysm. Volcanic upbuildings are often spasmodic and slow, a series of impulses separated by centuries of quiescence, but their climaxes often are sudden and excessively violent.

It seems more probable that Mazama collapsed during violent eruption.

Perhaps like a stroke of lightning at the moment of triumph, death came at the supreme climax of his career.

Certainly no mausoleum was ever conceived for human hero which may be compared for a moment with this glorified grave of dead Mazama!

The human history of Crater Lake has its interest. The Indians feared it. John W. Hillman was the first white man to see it. Early in 1853 a party of Californian miners ascended the Rogue River to rediscover a lost gold-mine of fabulous richness. The expedition was secret, but several Oregonians who suspected its object and meant to be in at the finding, quickly organized and followed. Hillman was of this party. The Californians soon learned of the pursuit.

"Then," wrote Hillman half a century later, "it was a game of hide and seek until rations on both sides got low. The Californians would push through the brush, scatter, double backward on their trail, and then camp in the most inaccessible places to be found, and it sometimes puzzled us to locate and camp near enough to watch them."

Eventually the rivals united. A combination search-party was chosen which included Hillman, and this party, while it found no gold-mine, found Crater Lake.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _From a photograph copyright by Fred H. Kiser_

APPLEGATE CLIFF, CRATER LAKE]

[Ill.u.s.tration: _From a photograph by Fred H. Kiser_

PHANTOM s.h.i.+P FROM GARFIELD PEAK]

"While riding up a long sloping mountain," Hillman continued, "we suddenly came in sight of water and were very much surprised as we did not expect to see any lakes. We did not know but what we had come in sight and close to Klamath Lake, and not until my mule stopped within a few feet of the rim of Crater Lake did I look down, and if I had been riding a blind mule I firmly believe I would have ridden over the edge to death and destruction...."

"The finding of Crater Lake," he concludes, "was an accident, as we were not looking for lakes; but the fact of my being the first upon its banks was due to the fact that I was riding the best saddle mule in southern Oregon, the property of Jimmy Dobson, a miner and packer with headquarters at Jacksonville, who had furnished me the mule in consideration of a claim to be taken in his name should we be successful. Stranger to me than our discovery was the fact that after our return I could get no acknowledgment from any Indian, buck or squaw, old or young, that any such lake existed; each and every one denied any knowledge of it, or ignored the subject completely."

The next development in Crater's history introduces Will G. Steel, widely known as "the Father of Crater Lake National Park," a pioneer of the highest type, a gold-seeker in the coast ranges and the Klondike, a school-teacher for many years, and a public-spirited enthusiast. In 1869, a farmer's boy in Kansas, he read a newspaper account of an Oregon lake with precipice sides five thousand feet deep. Moving to Oregon in 1871, he kept making inquiries for seven years before he verified the fact of the lake's existence, and it was two years later before he found a man who had seen it. This man's description decided him to visit it, then an undertaking of some difficulty.

He got there in 1885. Standing on the rim he suggested to Professor Joseph Le Conte that an effort be made to induce the national government to save it from defacement and private exploitation. Returning home they prepared a pet.i.tion to President Cleveland, who promptly withdrew ten towns.h.i.+ps from settlement pending a bill before Congress to create a national park. Congress refused to pa.s.s the bill on the ground that Oregon should protect her own lake. Then Steel began an effort, or rather an unbroken succession of efforts, to interest Congress. For seventeen years he agitated the project at home, where he made speeches winter and summer all over the State, and at Was.h.i.+ngton, which he deluged with letters and circulars. Finally the bill was pa.s.sed. Crater Lake became a national park on May 22, 1902.

Mr. Steel's work was not finished. He now began just as vigorous a campaign to have the lake properly stocked with trout. It required years but succeeded. Then he began a campaign for funds to build a road to the lake. This was a stubborn struggle which carried him to Was.h.i.+ngton for a winter, but it finally succeeded.

During most of this time Mr. Steel was a country school-teacher without other personal income than his salary. He spent many of his summers talking Crater-Lake projects to audiences in every part of the State, depending upon his many friends for entertainment and for "lifts" from town to town. He was superintendent of the park from 1913 to the winter of 1920, when he became United States commissioner for the park.

The att.i.tude of the Indians toward Crater Lake remains to be told. Steel is authority for the statement that previous to 1886 no modern Indian had looked upon its waters. Legends inherited from their ancestors made them greatly fear it. I quote O.C. Applegate's "Klamath Legend of La-o,"

from _Steel Points_ for January, 1907:

"According to the mythology of the Klamath and Modoc Indians, the chief spirit who occupied the mystic land of Gaywas, or Crater Lake, was La-o.

Under his control were many lesser spirits who appeared to be able to change their forms at will. Many of these were monsters of various kinds, among them the giant crawfish (or dragon) who could, if he chose, reach up his mighty arms even to the tops of the cliffs and drag down to the cold depths of Crater Lake any too venturesome tourist of the primal days.

"The spirits or beings who were under the control of La-o a.s.sumed the forms of many animals of the present day when they chose to go abroad on dry land, and this was no less true of the other fabulous inhabitants of Klamath land who were dominated by other chief spirits, and who occupied separate localities; all these forms, however, were largely or solely subject to the will of Komook.u.mps, the great spirit.

"Now on the north side of Mount Jackson, or La-o Yaina (La-o's Mountain), the eastern escarpment of which is known as La-o Rock, is a smooth field sloping a little toward the north which was a common playground for the fabled inhabitants of Gaywas and neighboring communities.

"Skell was a mighty spirit whose realm was the Klamath Marsh country, his capital being near the Yamsay River on the eastern side of the marsh. He had many subjects who took the form of birds and beasts when abroad on the land, as the antelope, the bald eagle, the bliwas or golden eagle, among them many of the most sagacious and active of all the beings then upon the earth.

"A fierce war occurred between Skell and La-o and their followers, which raged for a long time. Finally Skell was stricken down in his own land of Yamsay and his heart was torn from his body and was carried in triumph to La-o Yaina. Then a great gala day was declared and even the followers of Skell were allowed to take part in the games on Mount Jackson, and the heart of Skell was tossed from hand to hand in the great ball game in which all partic.i.p.ated.

"If the heart of Skell could be borne away so that it could be restored to his body he would live again, and so with a secret understanding among themselves the followers of Skell watched for the opportunity to bear it away. Eventually, when it reached the hands of Antelope, he sped away to the eastward like the wind. When nearly exhausted, he pa.s.sed it on to Eagle, and he in turn to Bliwas, and so on, and although La-o's followers pursued with their utmost speed, they failed to overtake the swift bearers of the precious heart. At last they heard the far-away voice of the dove, another of Skell's people, and then they gave up the useless pursuit.

"Skell's heart was restored and he lived again, but the war was not over and finally La-o was himself overpowered and slain and his bleeding body was borne to the La-o Yaina, on the very verge of the great cliff, and a false message was conveyed to La-o's monsters in the lake that Skell had been killed instead of La-o, and, when a quarter of the body was thrown over, La-o's monsters devoured it thinking it a part of Skell's body.

Each quarter was thrown over in turn with the same result, but when the head was thrown into the lake the monsters recognized it as the head of their master and would not touch it, and so it remains to-day, an island in the lake, to all people now known as Wizard Island."

In 1885, at Fort Klamath, Steel obtained from Allen David, the white-headed chief of the Klamath Indians, the story of how the Indians returned to Crater Lake. It was "long before the white man appeared to drive the native out." Several Klamaths while hunting were shocked to find themselves on the lake rim, but, gazing upon its beauty, suddenly it was revealed to them that this was the home of the Great Spirit.

They silently left and camped far away. But one brave under the spell of the lake returned, looked again, built his camp-fire and slept. The next night he returned again, and still again. Each night strange voices which charmed him rose from the lake; mysterious noises filled the air.

Moons waxed and waned. One day he climbed down to the water's edge, where he saw creatures "like in all respects to Klamath Indians"

inhabiting the waters. Again and again he descended, bathed, and soon began to feel mysteriously strong, "stronger than any Indian of his tribe because of his many visits to the waters."

Others perceiving his growing power ventured also to visit the lake, and, upon bathing in its waters also received strength.

"On one occasion," said David solemnly, "the brave who first visited the lake killed a monster, or fish, and was at once set upon by untold numbers of excited Llaos (for such they were called), who carried him to the top of the cliffs, cut his throat with a stone knife, then tore his body into small pieces which were thrown down to the waters far beneath and devoured by angry Llaos."

In 1886 two Klamaths accompanied Captain Clarence E. Dutton's Geological Survey party to Crater Lake and descended to the water's edge. The news of the successful adventure spread among the Indians, and others came to look upon the forbidden spot. That was the beginning of the end of the superst.i.tion. Steel says that two hundred Klamaths camped upon the rim in 1896, while he was there with the Mazamas.

The lake was variously named by its early visitors. The Hillman party which discovered it named it Deep Blue Lake on the spot. Later it was known as Lake Mystery, Lake Majesty, and Hole in the Ground. A party from Jacksonville named it Crater Lake on August 4, 1869.

X

YELLOWSTONE, A VOLCANIC INTERLUDE

THE YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK, WYOMING, NORTHWESTERN WYOMING. AREA, 3,348 SQUARE MILES

I

John Coulter's story of hot springs at the upper waters of the Yellowstone River was laughed at by the public of 1810. Jim Bridger's account of the geysers in the thirties made his national reputation as a liar. Warren Angus Ferris's description of the Upper Geyser Basin was received in 1842 in unbelieving silence. Later explorers who sought the Yellowstone to test the truth of these tales thought it wholesome to keep their findings to themselves, as magazines and newspapers refused to publish their accounts and lecturers were stoned in the streets as impostors. It required the authority of the semiofficial Washburn-Langford expedition of 1869 to establish credence.

The original appeal of the Yellowstone, that to wonder, remains its most popular appeal to-day, though science has dissipated mystery these many years. Many visitors, I am persuaded, enjoy the wonder of it more even than the spectacle. I have heard people refuse to listen to the explanation of geyser action lest it lessen their pleasure in Old Faithful. I confess to moods in which I want to see the blue flames and smell the brimstone which Jim Bridger described so eloquently. There are places where it is not hard to imagine both.

For many years the uncanny wonders of a dying volcanic region absorbed the public mind to the exclusion of all else in the Yellowstone neighborhood, which Congress, princ.i.p.ally in consequence of these wonders, made a national park in 1872. Yet all the time it possessed two other elements of distinction which a later period regards as equal to the volcanic phenomena; elements, in fact, of such distinction that either one alone, without the geysers, would have warranted the reservation of so striking a region for a national park. One of these is the valley of the Yellowstone River with its spectacular waterfalls and its colorful canyon. The other is its population of wild animals which, in 1872, probably was as large and may have been larger than to-day's.

Yet little was heard of the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone in those days, although Moran's celebrated painting, now in the Capitol at Was.h.i.+ngton, helped influence Congress to make it a national park; and so little did the wild animals figure in the calculations of the period that they were not even protected in the national park until 1894, when hunting had reduced the buffalo to twenty-five animals.

Even in these days of enlightenment and appreciation the great majority of people think of the Yellowstone only as an area enclosing geysers.

There are tourists so possessed with this idea that they barely glance at the canyon in pa.s.sing. I have heard tourists refuse to walk to Inspiration Point because they had already looked over the rim at a convenient and unimpressive place. Imagine coming two thousand miles to balk at two miles and a half to the only spectacle of its kind in the world and one of the world's great spectacles at that! As for the animals, few indeed see any but the occasional bears that feed at the hotel dumps in the evening.

The Yellowstone National Park lies in the recesses of the Rocky Mountains in northwestern Wyoming. It slightly overlaps Montana on the north and northwest, and Idaho on the southwest. It is rectangular, with an entrance about the middle of each side. It is the largest of the national parks, enclosing 3,348 square miles. It occupies a high plain girt with mountains. The Absarokas bound it on the east, their crest invading the park at Mount Chittenden. The Gallatin Range pushes into the northwestern corner from the north. The continental divide crosses the southwestern corner over the lofty Madison Plateau and the ridge south of Yellowstone Lake. Alt.i.tudes are generally high. The plains range from six to eight thousand feet; the mountains rise occasionally to ten thousand feet. South of the park the Pitchstone Plateau merges into the foothills of the Teton Mountains, which, thirty miles south of the southern boundary, rise precipitously seven thousand feet above the general level of the country.

Though occupying the heart of the Rocky Mountains, the region is not of them. In no sense is it typical. The Rockies are essentially granite which was forced molten from the depths when, at the creation of this vast central mountain system, lateral pressures lifted the earth's skin high above sea-level, folded it, and finally eroded it along the crest of the folds. In this granite system the Yellowstone is a volcanic interlude, and of much later date. It belongs in a general way to the impulse of volcanic agitation which lighted vast beacons over three hundred thousand square miles of our northwest. The Cascade Mountains belong in this grouping. Four national parks of to-day were then in the making, Mount Rainier in Was.h.i.+ngton, Crater Lake in Oregon, La.s.sen Volcanic in California, and the Yellowstone in Wyoming. Subterranean heat, remaining from those days of volcanic activity, to-day boils the water which the geysers hurl in air.

In the northeastern part of the Yellowstone a large central crater was surrounded by smaller volcanoes. You can easily trace the conformation from Mount Washburn which stood upon its southeastern rim, heaped there, doubtless, by some explosion of more than common violence. This volcanic period was of long duration, perhaps hundreds of thousands of years. In the northeastern part of the park the erosion of a hill has exposed the petrified remains of thirteen large forests in layers one on top of the other, the deep intervening s.p.a.ces filled with thick deposits of ashes.

Thirteen consecutive times were great forests here smothered in the products of eruption. Thirteen times did years enough elapse between eruptions for soil to make and forests to grow again, each perhaps of many generations of great trees.

Yellowstone's mountains, then, are decayed volcanoes, its rock is lava, its soil is ash and disintegrated lava. The resulting outline is soft and waving, with a tendency to levels. There are no pinnacled heights, no stratified, minareted walls, no precipiced cirques and glacier-shrouded peaks. Yet glaciers visited the region. The large granite boulder brought from afar and left near the west rim of the Grand Canyon with thousands of feet of rhyolite and other products of volcanism beneath it is alone sufficient proof of that.

Between the periods from volcano to glacier and from glacier to to-day, stream erosion has performed its miracles. The volcanoes have been rounded and flattened, the plateaus have been built up and levelled, and the canyons of the Yellowstone, Gibbon, and Madison Rivers have been dug. Vigorous as its landscape still remains, it has thus become the natural playground for a mult.i.tude of people unaccustomed to the rigors of a powerfully accented mountain country.

The fact is that, in spite of its poverty of peaks and precipices, the Yellowstone country is one of the most varied and beautiful wildernesses in the world. Among national parks it gains rather than loses by its difference. While easily penetrated, it is wild in the extreme, hinting of the prairies in its broad opens, pasture for thousands of wild ruminants, and of the loftier mountains in its distant ranges, its isolated peaks and its groups of rugged, rolling summits. In the number, magnitude, and variety of its waters it stands quite alone. It contains no less than three watersheds of importance, those of the Yellowstone, Madison, and Snake Rivers, flowing respectively north, west, and south.

The waters of the Yellowstone and Madison make it an important source of the Missouri. There are minor rivers of importance in the park and innumerable lesser streams. It is a network of waterways. Its waterfalls are many, and two of them are large and important. Its lakes are many, and several are large. Yellowstone Lake is the largest of its alt.i.tude in the world.