I have to do this, I thought. I felt I just had to jump into Crater Lake. I had come this far,  but I was full of so much fear. I was staring down off a cliff into Crater Lake, into a seemingly endless abyss. Crater Lake has some of the clearest and purest water in the world. It’s a massive lake at about five miles in diameter. With a casual glance the lake is a vibrant bright royal blue, but at the right angle, looking straight down into it, I could see the blue gradually grow deeper in transparency reaching an eternal darkness. The truth is it reaches about two thousand feet in depth. From up here, that seemed like an eternity. My eyes could follow little bubbles that traveled up from the depth, growing bigger as they wobbled and floated up to the surface. I have never in my life been able to see so deep into water. These little bubbles helped show the profundity of what I was looking into. It was unsettling.

I was certainly not alone on jumping into Crater Lake. This was the thing to do. There were dozens of other young people who were doing it, each one taking his or her own turn, and just about everyone reached the rim with hesitation. It wasn’t a terribly high cliff, only thirty five feet. That’s a little over two stories, but it was the shock of looking into it and seeing an endless depth that caused just about everyone to rethink matters.

What if I don’t come back up? I questioned. The thought was irrational, I know, but it is what seeing such deep waters provoked. If I couldn’t see into the water, if it was just murky, like most of the water out east, I would just have trusted the water to propel me back up. There never would have been a question, but here, something about seeing the depth of the water, conjured up this incredible fear. 

This one irrational thought wasn’t the only fear. There were also two more aspects. Secondly, the temperature of the water was very cold. At the visitor center I learned it was about forty degrees today. That’s very cold for water. Also, I had lost trust in myself as a swimmer. The summer prior, while visiting my brother Nathan in New York City, I visited Rockaway Beach at Gateway National Recreation Area on Long Island. I had seen some people jumping around on a sandbar out in the ocean. It didn’t look far. I could swim out there too. I did and just barely made it. That was strenuous. When I lived in Houston, Texas, I went swimming everyday for exercise, and I had really built up my confidence as a swimmer, but it had been a while. My lungs were no longer in quite the swimming shape. 

After a fun time of jumping around on the sand bar, it came time to swim back to the mainland, and that’s when things got hairy. I felt as if my efforts were fruitless. I kept swimming but wasn’t going anywhere. I didn’t seem to be making progress. The ocean was just pulling me backward, and I began to panic. In my panic my limbs grew stiff. I didn’t think I was going to make it. It was quite an intense moment. At one point I decided to just give in and see how far it was to the ocean floor. I sank, and I hit rock bottom. It was not far off. So my strategy was to sink, hit the bottom, jump up for air, and gradually progress my way to the mainland. This seemed to be more effective and require less energy than trying to rotate my panic stricken limbs. When I made it to the shore, I collapsed on the sand in relief. This experience was traumatic. When I’d go swimming shortly thereafter in subsequent months, I’d find my heart racing as my mind took me back to that moment. 

Now at Crater Lake National Park in Oregon, I knew this jump wouldn’t involve much swimming afterward, maybe only fifteen feet back to the rocky shore line aside the cliff, but I was still traumatized by my incident in New York. What if I freeze up in shock of hitting such cold water? I’m sure I wasn’t the only one with such questions. There was one teenage girl, who stood there for a good fifteen minutes. She’d inch her way closer to the rim, peer off it slowly, and cower back, taking a deep breath. Very few people approached the jump with boldness. A number of people, all young guys and girls, regularly offered for each other to cut in front of themselves and go first. I was one of them. “Oh, are you ready? Go ahead….You can go first…please.” When someone did cut to the front, that person would often look off the cliff edge and motion for the next person to go ahead. It was a bit of a pile up. When someone finally mustered up enough confidence to jump in, the rest of us cheered in great applause, for we understood it was a big deal and just what it took to do it. It was a great emotional feat of conquering a fear. We all felt it. We knew how strong that fear could be. It was encouraging, fun, and genuinely so pleasing to cheer each other on. There seemed to grow an instant camaraderie among the people here on this cliff on this June evening. 

At one point I decided to just get out of the way. My nerves were only growing. I climbed down alongside the cliff to the water’s edge and captured pictures of others jumping in. I captured Zach’s jump on video, and there was another young man whose picture I caught mid-air. His feet looked like they were resting on the mountains across the otherside of the lake in the photo. I showed him the photo when he got out of the water. He really liked it and wanted a copy. He introduced me to AirDrop, which is something I never knew was possible before. 

I just had to jump in the lake too. There were a few reasons. First, I knew this was a rare opportunity to overcome a fear, and every fear I overcome will make me a stronger person. There is nothing inherently dangerous about this. In all rational observation, deep down I knew I’d be fine. It was my own human instincts and irrational fear getting in the way. I was fully aware of this. Secondly, I admit, I wanted bragging rights to say I jumped into Crater Lake. Thirdly, how could I ever live with myself knowing I was up there on the cliff’s edge set out to jump into the lake but chickened out? I had to do this. I climbed back up there. I gave myself just a brief moment of hesitation, in which a man said to me, “If you start to drown I’ll come rescue you, I promise.” I guess that little bit of assurance was enough to greenlight this endeavor, and I jumped.

Crater Lake seemed so wide and huge from my freefall into it. It was too big, too intimidating. What am I doing?! I closed my eyes and hid behind the darkness of my eyelids. The cold mountain air ripped between my feet. I felt so exposed, my little half-bare body exposed to the elements, engulfed in the air. I felt the strange sensation of having lost control. There was nothing I could do to stop that which was before me. There was absolutely no way to stop the fall, no turning back. I was at the mercy of gravity and the forces of nature, exposed and vulnerable. I thought by this point I should have reached the water, but I was still falling. It was taking a while…but I was doing it! I was already proud of myself for facing my fear and already felt accomplished. I had launched myself off that cliff despite the most paralyzing of fears. If there ever is a chance to face a fear, do it. It’s what we all must do to keep growing. Theodore Roosevelt when talking about being a fearful child once said, “There were all kinds of things I was afraid of at first, ranging from grizzly bears to ‘mean’ horses and gun-fighters, but by acting as if I was not afraid I gradually ceased to be afraid.” He also added, “The worst of all fears is the fear of living.” I was living, jumping into Crater Lake!

  Okay, where is the water? Surely I should have hit the water by now, I thought. I guess I’m still falling. I wondered just how cold this water was going to feel, and how deep I would fall  into it. What is it going to feel like? Will Zach get a good picture of this? I’m glad I could share that one guy’s photo with AirDrop. After this we will finish our drive and go check out the lodge. It’ll be nice to rest there a bit, before we go back to camp. Should we make a fire tonight, or just go to sleep? Tomorrow we’ll make our way to Mount Saint Helen and stay at a KOA. There are so many cool places left to visit on this trip. I’m hungry. I wonder what kind of food we can find around here.  I wonder what kind of fish and creatures live in this lake. I wonder what lurks in its deepest depths. Is there something like the Loch Ness Monster in these waters?  One day this will all be…

KAPLUNK!

I was in Crater Lake. 

Water was gurgling, bubbling, and ripping around my ears. I felt gravity suck me downward, pressure pound at my skull, and then I began to rise. Surface, come quickly, I begged. Don’t take as long as that fall. 

Gasp! I made it. I opened my eyes and….

I panicked. 

My knees locked up. 

It was so cold. Too cold. I was numb. 

I instantly knew I was not going to make it back to the shoreline. My presupposition was correct. Time for plan B. I didn’t have one, but I was going to make one. I was not going to make a scene as to call over the man who promised to rescue me. How embarrassing that would be. Instead I flailed my way over to the craggy cliffside just below the jump-off. There was no real rock ledge or anything to provide footing, but somehow, with the greatest of Spiderman-like moves, I fasted my grasp and curled my toes onto that rock’s face. I will wait here until I catch my breath, and so I did, and I survived. I was white, blue, shivering cold, slightly traumatized, exhausted, yet adrenaline racing, and I was a heck of a warrior, I guess you could say. I’m glad I did it. It’s a story to tell, but…never again! 

If you enjoyed reading this, check out my book “Still, Calm, and Quiet“

Check out my previous entry here: “What is Light? God, Science, and Emerging from the Cave”

Visit www.joshhodge.com