Excerpt from Western Field, Vol. 12
A veritable wonderland is the region of craters, lying one hundred miles east of Roseburg, on the farther crest of the Cascade mountains. Its remoteness from the railroad, the vastness of its almost unbroken forests, its many dreaming lakes and abysmal canons make it at once a land of mystery.
Thirty-five miles east of that picturesque city the wagon road dwindles to a mere trail. Thence, onward to the headwaters of the East Umpqua, frowning cliffs above the rushing torrents greet the eye on either side, while dense forests of splendid pine and fir stretch away to the far-off mountain tops. Here and there majestic columns tower above the silent forest like the impregnable castles of the giants of old and huge angular blocks of moss-covered rock strew the steep declivities at their feet. Three days in the saddle, with nights spent under the stars at Chivagny, Buck Head and Black Rock camping grounds, found us at the Diamond Lake cabin of the Forest Rangers.
Diamond Lake is an enchanted spot. Its clear, sparkling water's nestle between Thielsen and Bailey - two slumbering, snow-streaked craters. It is two and a half by five miles in extent, and is hemmed in to the water's edge by evergreen forests, except on the south, where a wide grassy shore slopes gently to the lake fringed with a long row of fine spruce trees. Close by, a remarkable stream empties its icy waters into the gem-like lake. Short Creek, true to its name, is about thirty feet in width, twelve inches deep, and but 150 yards long. It flows rapidly from beneath a perpendicular bank of volcanic sand and pumice stone twenty feet high, and ripples softly along its narrow channel between steep banks to its outlet. It evidently comes down from Thielsen beneath a deep field of pumice, which literally filled a great canon during an eruption of the old volcano in the long ago.
The sun was peering over the lofty crags and cinder cone of Thielsen, and tinting the somber heights of old Bailey with the blush of morning, when Forest Rangers Oden and Bonebrake and myself saddled our horses and set out through the long stretch of lodge-pole pines to behold the wonders of Crater Lake, recently named Mt. Mazama, which lay on the horizon twelve miles to the south. The narrow trail emerged at last from the thickets of scrubby pine and led us across several miles of desert.
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