First known photo of the Old Man, 1901.

The Old Man of the Lake is a 30-foot tall hemlock stump that bobs and floats vertically in Crater Lake, Oregon, and has since at least 1896. Scientists have studied the stump for over 100 years, chalking its longevity and oddity up to Crater Lake’s ice cold, clear, clean water. During one month in 1938, it is noted, the Old Man traveled at least 62.1 miles with the ebb and flow of the lake.

The excellent blog by history write Mike Dash, A Blast From The Past, reports:

The Old Man has certainly been there for well over a hundred years, since the earliest known reference to it dates back to 1896 – and while its stump, two feet wide and bleached white by many years of sun, has lost a little of its topmost parts during that time (it used to project five feet above the surface, but now, thanks largely to the habit tourists had of jumping from their boats onto its tip, it has lost the top foot or two of its superstructure), this has not affected its stability. Like an iceberg, the Old Man hides most of its bulk beneath the surface; those who get close to it can look down and see some 30 feet of barkless trunk stretching down into the depths of the lake.

Why the Old Man floats so serenely, and has not either become completely waterlogged, or rotted, or been knocked to pieces as it crashed against the shore, remains something of a mystery. The most widely accepted theory suggests that when the tree fell into the lake – carried there, presumably, by some forgotten landslide – it took with it just sufficient rocks, trapped among its roots, to weigh it down and set it bobbing. Over time, the roots decayed and the rocks tumbled into the depths, but by then the trunk had become waterlogged, and the weight of that water kept it vertical. Meanwhile the sun, drying out the first five feet, gave the Old Man just sufficient buoyancy to remain afloat indefinitely; and the cold of the lake preserved it.

Tagged as: national park, public lands