Start for Crater Lake: Portland Mazamas will Climb the Steep Sides of Pitt Mountain
San Francisco Call
San Francisco, California
August 11, 1896
Government Commissioners Accompany the Party to Explore the Great Reservoir.
Those from Portland will leave in a special car and will reach Ashland Wednesday noon. They will climb Mount Pitt on the way to Crater Lake and will leave a Mazama register box on the summit. This will be the largest party that ever climbed Mount Pitt, as its location makes it so difficult of access that few people have attempted the ascent. The party will camp at the timber line the day before climbing the mountain. On Monday morning Crater Lake will be reached, and they will spend the rest of the week camping on the shore and making explorations on the lake and surrounding mountains.Portland, OR., Aug. 10 — The first party of Mazamas will start for Ashland, on the Crater Lake excursions, to-morrow morning. The party as made up at present consists of Professors Everman and Cox of the United States Fish Commission, Rev. Earl M. Wilbur of the First Unitarian Church of this city, M. W. Gorman, Mr. and Mrs. Donaldson of Oregon City, Miss A. J. Smith and Miss Winfred Watson of Portland and Miss Newman of Freeport, Fla. C. H. Sholes left for Ashland on Thursday on his wheel, and will be joined at Eugene by Professor Edgar McClure of the State University, who will ride with him to Ashland.
During the week other parties of Mazamas will join the campers, and it is expected that over 150 people will be present. The mountain in whose crater the wonderful lake is situated is to be christened Mount Mazama, in honor of the famous organizations of mountain-climbers. The Government Fish Commissioners, who accompany the party, will make a careful study of the waters of the lake, with a view to stocking it with fish, and both the temperature of the lake and the amount of fish food it contains will be carefully noted. Government botanists and geologists will also accompany the party and study the vegetation around the lake, and the formation of the country surrounding it.
A water-gauge and bench marks will be put in by the Mazamas, so that future visitors to the lake may note the height of the water at the different seasons of the year, and in this way gain some knowledge of the mysteries of its inland outlet.
