In early September 1964, I had just returned from Europe and was scheduled to report to Newport, Rhode Island, on September 19 to begin US Naval Officer Candidate School. In the meantime, I took a trip to Oregon with Chuck Mattox in his white Volvo PV544 – the one which looked like a ’48 Ford Wombat. Chuck’s younger brother Jim came along with us. We took the scenic route, driving up Highway 101, taking our time and stopping to smell the flowers, or at least the garlic at Gilroy.
The first night we stopped at Carmel and sacked out on the beach in our sleeping bags. In the morning a cop came along, sounded reveille and sent us on our way. This was probably one of the last times you could sleep on the beach at Carmel without being fined and/or thrown in jail.
Continuing on through Northern California into Oregon, we cut over to US 97 to take the road to Crater Lake. I had never been to Crater Lake before. If I remember correctly, the park lodge and campgrounds were already closed for the season and it had already snowed for the first time, but the roads were clear and so were the skies. The weather was beautiful but cold. We slept by the side of the road – again, if I remember correctly, one of us in the car and two in a tent, or maybe vice versa. I do remember that Jim complained bitterly about the cold.
When we woke up in the morning, the lake was engulfed in fog. It soon burned off in the morning sun, but while it lasted it gave the lake and its rim an almost otherworldly, spectral appearance.
We drove around the rim, viewing the lake from several vantage points. Wizard Island, at the west end of the lake, is visible in most of these pictures. There is a cruise boat that you can take to the island, but it had shut down for the season by the time we visited the lake.
When the fog cleared, the green of the forest around the rim contrasted sharply with the rocky cliffs and the blue water of the lake.
Although I’ve been to Crater Lake a couple of times since then, I don’t think I’ve ever seen it as beautiful as in early September 1964.
When we arrived in Eugene, I met Chuck’s fiancée, then Elouise Foiles, for the first time. (They have now been happily married for 55 years.) Almost as soon as we got there, Chuck piled us all into the car and took us for a drive up the incredibly picturesque McKenzie River, which arises in the Cascades at Clear Lake and flows down to join the Willamette five miles north of Eugene. We drove up Highway 126, stopping at intervals to enjoy the lush beauty of the river and the forest lining its banks, and turned off at Highway 242, which took us toward Proxy Falls. On the way to Proxy Falls, we passed one of Oregon’s charmingly desolate lava beds, where astronauts used to prepare for walking on the moon.
To get from the road to Proxy Falls, we had to hike an easy 1.5 mile trail. The waterfall is created by a single stream tumbling over a moss-covered hillside in two separate cascades, which then come together again halfway down, forming a diaphanous veil.
Proxy Falls drops 226 feet from the top of the hill. It presents a distinctly different appearance when you get up close, and you can get close enough to get wet.
Chuck, Elouise and Jim scrambled around on the wet rocks at the foot of the falls and I shot pictures with the little Voigtländer Vitoret I had brought back from Europe. The water from Proxy Falls, oddly enough, doesn’t continue to flow down to join the McKenzie. It seeps through the porous lava at the bottom of the falls and disappears.
