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Chubb Crater - Part 5 of 12

> I'm ready for the next installment of the Chubb Crater story.

OK, Ginger, here it is :-)

Nightmare Descent to Lake

Canoeing on crater lake sounds as if it might have been the expedition's
easiest assignment. It wasn't. First of all, the canoe and all research
equipment had to be carried to the lake, not forgetting an outboard
motor, gasoline, and other items.
Nick and Fred did this punishing job. They set out early a few days
after our arrival, one burdened with a 105-pound canoe, the other
packing a large aluminum winch that weighed 75 pounds, including 1,500
feet of stainless-steel cable on its drum.
Their way led through the treacherous fields of shattered gray and white
granite. The going was so laborious that every 10 or 15 minutes the men
were forced to stop and rest. Then they'd swap loads and push on.
It took hours to reach the crater's rim. There they faced the most
dangerous part of their trip - the descent. For the first 100 feet down
from the top, the incline is relatively gentle, but the final 300 feet
has a pitch of 40° to 45°.
This descent was a nightmare obstacle course, for the slope was of rocks
ranging in size from a foot to 10 feet high, intermixed with small
patches of loose fragments made to order for starting a boulder
avalanche.
The man carrying the winch dropped his load and served as eyes for the
teammate walking almost blind with the canoe over his head. With utmost
care the pathfinder picked a reasonably safe path down the hazardous
slope for his partner. After an extremely slow and cautious passage the
canoe at last was set down upon the lake's waters.
This represented a whole day's work; by the time Fred and Nick got their
aching muscles back to camp it was evening, however bright the sleepless
sun might be above.
The next day the two iron men put on a repeat performance, packing the
outboard motor, tins of gasoline, and equipment to the lake over the
same wearisome trail.
Originally we had intended to use both expedition canoes in the crater.
However, the difficulties involved in getting one canoe there safely
were so great that I decided to assign the second craft to Museum Lake
at once for the research work we had planned to do there later.
Ironically, after all the labor and luck it took to get a canoe to the
crater, the sunken lake knew only two days during our entire stay when
its surface was calm enough to permit sounding work and other research
at any distance from the shore. Winds seemed to get on a merry-go-round
down in the basinlike crater. As a result, the lake surface was
invariably troubled or choppy.
Long John Keefe and Len Cowan, painstakingly occupied with their
instruments on the crater rim, also found progress discouraging,
Sometimes rain or snow made the rim's boulders too dangerously slippery
for work. Even in fair weather magnetic storms plagued their operation
by rendering magnetometer readings valueless. An added discouragement
was the failure of the mine detectors to be of any value in finding
meteoritic material. They "sang" almost continuously in the boulder
field because virtually all the rocks contained traces of terrestrial
metallic minerals.
The days were slipping by inexorably, and expedition results still
remained on the slim side, even counting the two Arctic foxes and the
lone lemming.

"Crater Calling!"

I know amateur radio operators are proud to refer to themselves as
"hams." In my case the word has a special connotation.
By far the heaviest single item we had brought with us was a radio
transceiver borrowed from Canadian Army Signals. No one else in the
party professed knowledge of radio, so I volunteered as operator of this
transmitting-receiving device, aided by some preliminary instruction
from experts. I made copious notes on what each tutor told me and was
able to work the instrument without trouble in a test run at Roberval.
After we had camp properly organized, I decided one night it was time
for the expedition's radioman to demonstrate his talent. The antenna
system already had been rigged to the 25-foot collapsible aluminum
poles, which also did duty as flagstaffs.
With some misgivings I pressed the switches and began tuning. The
instructions I had taken down from my tutors were at my elbow. I quickly
picked up a station on Baffin Island talking to Goose Bay, Labrador.
My expectations soared. Craterland was going on the air! I set the
transmitter for our frequency, pressed the microphone switch, and sent
out my call. It was in a surprisingly quavery voice.
I waited. No answer. All evening at intervals I kept repeating the call.
No answer.

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