Crater Lake in Oregon is amazing in many ways. It has the distinction of being the deepest lake in the United States and the ninth deepest in the world. It is essentially in an ancient, collapsed volcano (called a caldera) in which all of its water is from precipitation. There are no rivers, streams or springs that feed it.
Established in 1902, Crater Lake is the fifth oldest U.S. national park and the only national park in Oregon.
I want to share the story about the interesting and mysterious “Old Man of the Lake”. It is a floating log that has been bobbing around Crater Lake for at least 120 years. What’s unique about it is that it doesn’t float horizontally; it floats vertically, and people swear it can control the local weather.
The first account of the Old Man of the Lake dates to 1896, when geologist and explorer Joseph S. Diller described a splintered and bleached white log floating vertically in Crater Lake.
Ranger standing on the Old Man of the Lake, Circa 1930.
Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons/Public Domain
Why Does it float Horizontally?
According to the laws of physics, a floating object of uniform density will always have its center of mass higher than its center of buoyancy, which is why tree logs float horizontally. The Old Man of the Lake is different. Despite being 30 feet-long, with a diameter of about 25 inches, it’s been bobbing vertically for the last 120 years (with about three to four feet above the waterline). Why this is so is still a mystery. At first it was thought that perhaps rocks were entwined with the roots weighting down one end. But because the water is so clear, you can see down into the water to see the end of the log and there are no rocks. Perhaps, initially, there were rocks and that allowed the submerged portion of the log to absorb water and change the density. No one really knows
Superstitious people believe that the Old Man of the Lake has the power to affect local weather. In 1988 when the park brought in a submersible watercraft to explore the lake bottom, researchers were concerned about running into the Old Man so they tied the log up on the eastern shore of Wizard Island (a volcanic cinder cone in the middle of the lake). According to several accounts from locals, as soon as the Old Man of the Lake was immobilized, the clear weather turned stormy, and it soon started to snow. This was in August. As soon as the Old Man was released, the weather cleared up.
How to Visit
I visited the famous Old Man during the summer of 2018. There is only one legal way to access the shore of the lake and that is by the Cleetwood Cove Trail. The 1.1-mile trail is strenuous and takes approximately 30 to 60 minutes to get down to the dock.
In summer, Crater Lake Hospitality, a concessioner for the park, offers daily boat tours on Crater Lake. A park ranger is aboard most tours, which circumnavigate the lake. Since the Old Man can be virtually anywhere on the lake, the boat captains communicate its position to each other as a general matter of safety and as of January 2012, tour boats regularly pass the Old Man on their journeys to view the sights around Crater Lake. Tickets for the boat tours can be reserved and purchased here Boat Tours | Crater Lake National Park | TravelCraterLake.com. If you have reservations for the lake tour, you must take into account the amount of time it takes to drive to the trailhead and the time it takes to hike down to the dock.
Even if you don’t take a boat trip, hiking down to Cleetwood Cove is worth it just to get a view of magnificent Crater Lake from the water level.
Sources
The Old Man – Crater Lake National Park (U.S. National Park Service) (nps.gov)