Appletons' Popular Science Monthly, May 1899: Volume LV, No. 1, May 1899Various
History
Appletons' Popular Science Monthly, May 1899: Volume LV, No. 1, May 1899
Various
Science -- Periodicals; Technology -- Periodicals
A crude steam ferry across Lake Lindeman cuts off about six miles from
the first part of the trail, after which a rapidly rising path,
sufficiently distinct to permit it to be easily followed, winds over
the rocks and among rock _débris_ to Long Lake, situated at an
elevation of some twenty-six hundred feet, where night shelter is
found in a fairly comfortable tent. Up to this point we had
encountered but little snow, and the condition of the trail was such
as to allow of rapid travel. A wise caution detained us here for the
night, and the incoming of a solitary traveler warned us that a
blizzard had struck the summit of the pass, and buried it beneath a
heavy mantle of snow. Had we been a day earlier we might have crossed
dry shod, a very exceptional condition at this time of the year, but
now the possibilities of a struggle gravely presented themselves. A
light frost of the night had fairly congealed the soil, but the lake
did not carry enough surface ice to interfere with the progress of a
scow, and we reached the farther end without difficulty. The two-mile
portage to Crater Lake was largely a snow traverse, but an easy one;
at this time, however, it began to snow heavily, and the immediate
prospect was anything but cheerful. A low fog hung over the waters,
but not so low or so dense as to prevent us from occasionally catching
glimpses of the rocks which projected with disagreeable frequency from
an assumed bottomless pit or "crater." The ascent from Crater Lake to
the summit, somewhat less than three hundred and fifty feet, was made
in about half an hour, and then began the steep and sudden plunge
which marks the southern declivity of this famous mountain pass. Some
little caution was here required to keep a foothold, and a too sudden
break might have led to an exhilarating, even if not anxiously sought
after, glissade; but in truth, to any one only moderately practiced in
mountaineering, even this steep face, which descends for a thousand
feet or more from a summit elevation of thirty-four hundred feet,
presents little difficulty and hardly more danger. What there is of a
trail zigzags in wild and rapid courses over an almost illimitable
mass of rock _débris_, at times within sheltered or confined hollows,
but more generally on the open face of the declivity. This it is more
particularly that carries to many a certain amount of fear in the
making of the passage, but, with proper caution and the right kind of
boots, nothing of danger need be apprehended.
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