Great Secrets of Our National Parks
Some of the best findings by accidental anthropologists and studied experts.
Categories: Featured Travel Stories , Photo Gallery
By: TW Editors 06/01/2008
Crater Lake, OR
Man of the Lake
A century-old Man of the Lake?
Next time you make your way to this national park, look for a tall stump of tree that has been bobbing vertically in Oregon’s Crater Lake for more than a century.
When Joseph S. Diller published the first geology of Crater Lake in 1902 (the same year it became a national park), he noted that a stump he had found six years earlier appeared to be rooted near the west shore of Wizard Island. He first noticed it in 1896, when he tied it off with bailing wire to track its movement.
Given the caldera’s steep slopes, trees commonly slid into the water, roots first. How this particular one remained vertical can only be speculated. In John Salinas’s 1996 report for the National Park Service, he wrote how some believe the “Old Man” slipped into the lake with rocks bound within his roots. That would make him float vertically for the time being, and eventually the “submerged end could become heavier over time through being waterlogged. Acting like the wick on a candle, the shorter upper portion of the Old Man remains dry and light. This apparent equilibrium allows the log to be very stable in the water.”
However the 30-foot log got there, the bleached white Old Man still bobs four feet above the water. Unlike most who visit this park, when you see the Old Man, you’ll know its secret history.
DIGG | del.icio.us | REDDIT