The Old Man is a celebrity favorite among visitors and Rangers alike who are always looking to spot him on Crater Lake. Actually, he is not a person at all, but, instead, the Old Man is a 30-foot mountain hemlock log that has, (at least since 1896), floated vertically and continuously in the Lake, with about 3+ feet of the stump above water.
His actual age has been carbon dated to more than 450 years old, though the physics of his upright stance remain a mystery, as do his seemingly random travels across the surface of Crater Lake. Theories on his orientation abound, and though not proven, the commonly held belief is that because the lower part of the tree stump has been in the cold water for over a hundred years, its density has increased, making the Old Man buoyant and balanced.
His travels were first tracked in 1896 by Joseph Diller, an early Park geologist who completed the sketch accompanying this post. The curiosity surrounding the Old Man continued to grow and, in 1938, Washington D.C commissioned a study of his travels. Between July and October, “Old Man” traveled 62.1 miles, an average of .67 miles/day with his maximum daily distance of 3.8 miles achieved on August 6th!
Some believe that the Old Man controls the weather here at Crater Lake and woe be to those who mess with him. As the story goes, in 1988 when the Park brought in a submersible to explore the Lake bottom, the researchers concerned about running into “Old Man”, tied him up on the eastern shore of Wizard Island. Shortly thereafter storms blew in, making it impossible to launch the submersible at all. When this was quickly followed by snow in August, the scientists very quietly, (and under cover of night), released “Old Man” back into the Lake, thus restoring the weather and the Old Man’s freedom.
Perhaps the Old Man is best summed up by Scott Girdner, an aquatic biologist here at Crater Lake who explains that the Old Man is much more than a floating log. “He has character, a story, and history that is part of the park.”
[Image descriptions: The left photo. The Old Man floating in Crater Lake, with the dry, bleached section of the log floating vertically, taken near the shore from a tour boat on the lake. The middle photo, a longer shot of the Old Man taken mid-lake from a tour boat, with the Caldera reflecting on the water and casting afternoon shadows on the Old Man. The right graphic, a sketch recording the Old Man’s travels across the lake, completed by Joseph S. Diller, 1896]
