I photographed this. For a bit more drama, I told Bernice to ride my horse across. Halfway to the other side, No-Name either lost his footing, or his nerve, and swung about to return. Instead of rushing to Bernice's aid, I for once continued photographing. She went to jump off, but caught a foot up in a stirrup. Before I could even consider all of the possible consequences of this situation, she kicked free, to slip right under No-Names belly. Unable to stop, with a whoosh, she slid, on the seat of her pants, on down the steep slope.

As there were huge rocks at the bottom of this precipice, and Bernice was picking up speed as she bounced downhill, we all experienced a moment of panic. I was so nervous I kept the camera clicking. What a relief it was to hear a joyful "Whee-ee-ee," as she grabbed control, and decided this was more fun than frightening.


Very naturally I and the children laughed so hard that Bernice then decided it wasn't fun, or funny. Climbing back up this incline, she wasted a lot of breath telling us what she thought about our lack of concern. I made the mistake of letting her know I had photographed this "adventure" from start to finish. Jokingly, I asked if she would do it one more time to make sure I had it all on film. I just about ended up taking that slide myself. My wife came running, yelling, "Queen of the mountain .... yaaaaaaaah!"

The girls wanted to sail off too, but looking once again at the ragged reef of rock that ringed this bounding main of snow, far below, I suggested we had no time for tobogganing. Instead I tried to change their interest by pointing out Mt. Mazama, ahead. This was what was left of a volcano that at one time was the highest peak in the Northwest. When it had exploded, a 2,000 foot deep lake was created in the caldera. I'm glad I took the time here to explain how this happened, for this was, it turned out, to be our best view of Crater Lake National Park.

As Crater Lake ranks with Yellowstone, and The Grand Canyon, as one of the natural wonders of America, I had written a lengthy letter to the Park Service explaining what we were attempting to do, and that I was a photographer. I asked where would be the best place to capture on film the pack train silhouetted against the deep blue water, which is surrounded by 1,000 foot high cliffs composed of many colors. I also asked if we could store a cache of supplies to be picked up en'route.

As on par with our experience in National Car Parks, the answer to both of these requests was a page of fine print regulations saying, "No." This had been our one and only turn-down while setting out the caches; the reason the hop from Copco, to Lake of the Woods wasn't that long.

That was livable. What we resented more was being routed on dirt roads, for 43 boring miles. Because our camping permit only was good for one night, there wasn't time, as the superintendent suggested, to tie our horses, and walk on foot up a three mile long fire road to reach the rim.