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Boreal Ridge
Posted by: J. B. Post (IP Logged)
Date: 29 January, 2010 09:02AM
With Crater Ridge now called Boreal Ridge, someone should set a story in the ski resort where the skiers encounter "leakages" from the world of the Singing Flame beyond the gates.

JBP

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Re: Boreal Ridge
Posted by: Absquatch (IP Logged)
Date: 30 January, 2010 11:18AM
Yes, and ideally, the skiers will all meet horrible, painful deaths for desecrating the territory.... :-D

On a less facetious note, a correspondent who is about to join this forum recently provided me with the following information about Crater/Boreal Ridge, With his permission, I am posting it here, in the hope that others will be interested, and that this thread can be a repository for discussion of this enigmatic place.

Quote:
After looking at a bunch of topographic maps of the area near Donner Summit, I found one ridge that matched the description of Crater Ridge perfectly: Boreal Ridge. The thing that makes me nearly certain of it is it not only has a small lake at the top of it, but the lake is still called Crater Lake, no doubt retaining the former name of the ridge it lies on. [...]
The lake and western portion of the ridge are on National Forest property, but the land that all the roads/trails to get to it are on is all owned by the ski resort. If all else fails, it may be possible to inconspicuously hike in cross-country to the site.

Here are links to some topographic maps that show it. I'm not sure how familiar you are with the area, so I included some larger scale (100k & 500k) maps to get a sense of where in northern California this is:

[i.imgur.com]
[i.imgur.com]
[i.imgur.com]

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Re: Boreal Ridge
Posted by: Noel Farmer (IP Logged)
Date: 1 February, 2010 12:16PM
I am sorry to tell you that Boreal Ridge is the name given to the Boreal Ski Area.

The Bear River Canyon is a few miles farther west. The emigrants travelled west to Emigrant Gap where the wagons were lowered via ropes several hundred feet into the Bear River Canyon for the remainder of the trip west. The depth and width of the canyon is such that it gives the appearance of a crater. Thus Crater Ridge was the landmark to drop into the canyon from which the trip was relatively easy the rest of the way to Sacramento.

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Re: Boreal Ridge
Posted by: calonlan (IP Logged)
Date: 1 February, 2010 02:53PM
Thanks Noel - Noel is my brother, and lives near the area and has skiid everywhere, plus having lived in the area most of his life - you may consider his knowledge authoritative in this matter.

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Re: Boreal Ridge
Posted by: Absquatch (IP Logged)
Date: 1 February, 2010 05:16PM
Most appreciated. If you look at the links to the topographical maps, though, you'll see they show that part of Boreal Ridge is national forest property, and on that part of the ridge sits Crater Lake. Perhaps that is what you meant, Noel? I am assuming--or at least hoping--that that is the area described in "The City of the Singing Flame".



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 1 Feb 10 | 05:16PM by Absquatch.

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Re: Boreal Ridge
Posted by: Noel Farmer (IP Logged)
Date: 2 February, 2010 05:51PM
If it was ever known as Crater Ridge that would be news to me. It could be a reference to some other unnamed area near the lake. The names in the area were all given by the early explorers and emigrants. As far as I know and I can find no evidence to the contrary none of these locations were renamed. In the time CAS was writing these areas were still pretty difficult to reach most of the time and impossible in Winter.

Having said all of that, Lake Tahoe's name was not formalized until 1948. It was known under many names the most formal being Lake Bigler. He was governor of CA in the mid 19th Century and was a sympathizer with the South in the Civil War. The emigrant route over the Sierra passed near Boreal Ridge.

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Re: Boreal Ridge
Posted by: Absquatch (IP Logged)
Date: 6 February, 2010 01:22PM
Thanks for the additional input, Noel.

I wish that someone could ask Donald Sidney Fryer what he meant when he wrote that the Crater Ridge which served as partial inspiration for CAS's famous tale is "now [in 1981] known officially by a different name". That would go along way toward resolving the mystery.

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