VISIT TO A COMFORTABLE CALDERA Bruce Finson (NEWBERRY) Photographs by the author ... V) E HAD driven halfway around the rim of math Falls we had stopped while a heavy hailstorm Q) w UN Crater Lake, stopping now and then to beat a thunder of steel drums on the car roof. And ~ r-.... peer down the steep lava slopes at the jewel-blue on the way up the slope to Crater Lake we had ·-u °' water, to feel the hardness and texture of the vol­ stopped for a pleasanter purpose-a midsummer V') >- ..._ '- frolic in the snow. Now we had seen Crater Lake, 0 0 canic rocks near the road, and to take pictures of >- 2 the fantastic erosional buttes and spires. We had however briefly, and at the moment wanted nothing E ...c Q) Q) found it difficult to do anything but gawk; Crater more than a comfortable campground for a night's ""t) LL Lake is astonishing in the suddenness of its steep rest before going on to the Newberry area. We I 8 appearance after the winding climb through green found our campground by the warm waters of Dia­ <( c 0 g forests with dim white snow patches interspaced mond L:.ikc, just a few miles north of Crater Lake C C among the trees. We did not stay long at the rim. National Park. '- 0 J2 ' Our purpose was not to do a detailed study of this In the morning, after a sunrise swim with pu­ mice chunks for water balls, we broke camp and 0 most famous caldera, but to get a quick view of its ~ u © overall shape and feeling for comparison with its drove through national forest land on U. S. 97. In I ...C almost equally-huge but less-known neighbor to the an hour we were at the turnoff to the Paulinas, c-5 north, the Newberry Caldera, largest of the ice-age about five miles north of Lapine and twenty-five ~z miles south of Bend. We filled up on gas and water, o> volcanoes east of the Cascades. ~x It had been a long day of exploring. My cam­ checked our camping provisions, and headed east ex per-a converted delivery van-held two tired on the good blacktop road. Our elevation at the u Q) children and a restless clog. We had left Mount Las­ turnoff was 4200 feet; the guard station at Paulina ~ E ·- :::> sen in the morning, stopped for a brief hike through Lake, inside the caldera, was only twelve miles go Burney Falls canyon, and driven around three sides away but 2100 feet higher, at 6300 feet. 0... > .. of Mount Shasta on our way to Oregon. Near Kia- For the first couple of miles the road was level. E 0 '­ Above, Paulina Peak, highest point on the rim of Newberry Caldera, rises steeply to 7900 LL feet, 1500 feet above the crater lakes. This view is from East Lake. Right, on Paulina Peak are jagged spires of eroded lava. The first row of hills beyond Lake Paulina is the caldera rim, at most places only a few hundred feet high. Cascades peaks in background. 24 Then, just inside the border of Deschutes National Finally we were at the top, then over the edge Forest, the road began to climb. We crossed a and looking down into the huge caldera. We were stream, but did not realize at the time that this was not 111 uch above the level of the lake, as the road Paulina Creek, outlet from the crater lake, on its comes in from the west through the only break in way to join the Little Deschutes River just across the steep caldera wall. It is through this break that the highway. The road was not a steep one; New­ Paulina Creek has its outlet, the water flowing only berry is a shield volcano, formed by many liquid a short distance before it tumbles over a waterfall outpourings of lava, and its form is that of a shal­ into the gorge of the river we had crossed on our low dome rather than a steep mountain like Shasta way up. Although we could not see the entire or Lassen. So the drive up to the lake was a steady caldera from our parking place by the guard sta­ meandering climb up the gentle slope of the shield, tion, we had a sense of quiet spaciousness as we with many bends and turns as we passed around looked across mile-wide Paulina Lake to the steep one or another volcanic protuberance. But the hills on the other side. To our right was the row steadiness of the climb, and the evcrchanging views o[ overlapping cinder cones that divided the caldera of forest and sky afforded by the winding road, gave in half and hid landlocked East Lake from our us the feeling that we were climbing onward and view. Paulina is a fishing resort, having been ever upward to a high and distant place, and stocked with trout in 1910, and there are com­ brought us an awareness of the hugeness of this old mercial lodges as well as public campgrounds volcano. It measures twenty-five miles across at the within the caldera. But we h::id arrived in mid­ base; and the peaks and crags left when it collapsed morning, long past the hour of intense angling, and into itself make a landscape feature distinctive the lake had the sleepy peace of midday in mid­ enough on the Deschutes Plateau that it has been summer. Coming over the lip of the caldera to this given its own name-the Paulina Mountains-as if quiet lake with its forested slopes, we felt as if we it were a separate mountain range. h::id arrived at a separate world, a large and open LAVA FLOW world with a wide sky, but a world that had its defi­ N nite boundaries in the form of the encircling hills. EAST This crater would make a good Shangri-La. LA KE We drove along the road of the lake for a mile, PAULINA the11_ turned into the campground on the east shore. LAKE The row of cinder cones separating the lakes was right at our backs, directly south was the large ob­ sidi:m flow, and beyond that the steep ruggedness of Paulina Peak. Most of the hills forming the cal­ OBSIDIAN FLOW dera rim are only a few hundred feet high, but Paulina Peak reaches up to 7897 feet, 1500 feet above the lake. There is a winding road to the top, and we planned to try it the next morning as one of several short geological excursions to make during this visit. OBSIDIAN FLOW We spent the rest of the day in family camping activities-a swim in the lake, a walk to the falls and the gorge below it that the river has carved deep ONE MILE into the layered lava flows of the volcano's flank, then dinner and an evening of star-watching and meteor-counting. In the morning, after breakfast and camp clean-up, the camp and lake were still in shade. To the south, Paulina Peak glowed yellow in the early light. We made up our minds that the drive to the top would be our first excursion of the day. The road from the guard station climbs 1500 feet in three miles, and we figured that an early-morning drive would help a tired old radiator stay refreshed. So we drove back along the shore of a lake studded with fishing boats, and turned onto the road to the peak. In a few hundred feet the road changed from paved to gravel, but it was well maintained and the curves and slopes were gentle. After about a mile that changed, and the road began to snake back and forth, getting narrower and steeper as it twisted around volcanic outcrops on the way to the top. Naomi and Rachel were looking out the windows, urging me excitedly to look at the ever-enlarging view of the countryside below. I decided to post­ pone my viewing until I was no longer driving, lest the car and I fall into the view. I didn't want to stop to look, either, because then the radiator might heat up too much. So I confined my looking to passing glances at several rugged spires of black rock, per­ haps fifty feet high, that the road curved around. From a distance these looked a little like burned­ out trunks of trees, and I noticed a certain place where I could park on the way down to get good pictures of the spires. We curved and twisted up the steepness for another mile, and then, suddenly, the slopes fell away on both sides and we were at the top. There were a parking area and fire lookout below the peak, and we all got out to walk and look. Left, Paulina Peak. Newberry Caldera combines volcanic landscapes with a peaceful fishing resort. Above, map of the central portion of the caldera. Road coming in from the west makes access easy to the lakes, the obsidian l flows, and the peak. Paulina Peak sticks up about 2000 feet from cliff to the east for a view of the large obsidian flow, the surrounding plateau, and from it we could see which is about a mile long. The surface of the not only the caldera an_d the two lakes, but also a flow was far from even, but undulated in little wide-stretching view of eastern Oregon.