The Watchman-Hillman talus slopes form the largest single slide area within the caldera walls. The slide is constantly in action, though no mass slumps have occurred in the last few years. The coarse, flat, detrital beach at the base grows rapidly outward in Skell Channel. It has been built up as follows: Perennial snow patches remain at the base of the talus. Most of the detritus slides over the snow and is deposited farther out on to the beach or into the water. In the early summer when the snow is deepest, the rocks are carried into the water. Already the beach extends 300 feet into Skell Channel. The Channel is now approximately 1,600 feet wide and less than 100 feet deep.

The earliest pictures of Crater Lake, about 50 years old, do not show any such wide beach. Wizard's status as an island is endangered; if the present rate of erosion continues and the lake level does not rise, our great grandchildren will view Wizard Peninsula.