Mary Schaffer (an accomplished artist, photographer, and writer) was credited with discovering this lake (after being advised of it's existence by natives). She was an incredible woman who ventured off into the mountain wilderness on a four month pack trip. Her answer to those who said she should not go was, "Can the free air sully, can the birds teach us words we should not hear, can it be possible to see, in such a summer's outing, one sight as painful as the daily ones of poverty, degradation, and depravity of a great city?" She later married her guide Billy Warren.