John Salinas

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John Salinas Oral History Interview

photo above: John Salinus in the middle flanked by Charles Bacon, left, Craig Ackerman, right.

Interviewer: Stephen R. Mark, Crater Lake National Park Historian

Interview Location and Date: Rogue Community College, Grants Pass, Oregon, April 7, 1998

Transcription: Transcribed by Renee Edwards, September 1998

Biographical Summary (from interview introduction)

John Salinas started his work at the park as a seasonal interpreter from 1978 to 1982. During that time he assisted Doug Larson with limnological studies of Crater Lake, something that provided an impetus for Salinas to eventually complete his master’s degree at Oregon State University. After an absence lasting two summers, he returned to the Park in 1988 and continues his intermittent role in the lake research program under contract. The ever-versatile Salinas continues to teach a field studies course for Rogue Community College in the park each year and has regularly contributed to Nature Notes from Crater Lake. His articles in the latter encompass subjects as diverse as the Old Man of the Lake, the Whitehorse Ponds, and a repeat photography project.

Materials Associated with this interview on file at the Dick Brown library at Crater Lake National Park’s Steel Visitor Center

Taped interview; report on Whitehorse Ponds in park library; several articles in Nature Notes. One of the principals in a repeat photography project funded by Crater Lake Natural History Association.

To the reader:

John Salinas started his work at the park as a seasonal interpreter from 1978 to 1982. During that time he assisted Doug Larson with limnological studies of Crater Lake, something that provided an impetus for Salinas to eventually complete his master’s degree at Oregon State University. After an absence lasting two summers, he returned to the Park in 1988 and continues his intermittent role in the lake research program under contract. The ever-versatile Salinas continues to teach a field studies course for Rogue Community College in the park each year and has regularly contributed to Nature Notes from Crater Lake. His articles in the latter encompass subjects as diverse as the Old Man of the Lake, the Whitehorse Ponds, and a repeat photography project.

The following transcription is from an interview conducted at Rogue Community College late one afternoon in 1998. Although I prepared a set of questions for him, the interview flowed so well that is probably could have been conducted without them. These and some related correspondence can be found in the park’s history files.

Stephen R. Mark

Crater Lake National Park Historian

January 2000

I’ve prepared some questions for John chronologically. We’ll start with some background.

I started working at Crater Lake in 1978. The story that leads me to Crater Lake is a little jumbled. My parents were living in Cleveland, Ohio, when I was born. I went to elementary schools in Cleveland until I was in the seventh grade and we moved to San Jose, California. I spent my junior high, high school, college years there and did four years of high school teaching in the Bay Area. During that time Marilyn and I married. My wife and I decided we wanted a little more for our family than the concrete jungle down there, so we moved to Grants Pass. I applied to teach at high schools throughout California, Washington and Oregon, and was offered a job in Mt. Shasta. Grants Pass finally won out, so we located here.

Was Marilyn’s family a factor?

Marilyn’s family was in Grants Pass, but they didn’t have much to do with our decision. It was the job availability. Grants Pass was opening two new high schools the same year I was looking for a position. North Valley and Hidden Valley high schools opened that year. I was hired as the department head of Hidden Valley High School when it opened in 1977.

The connection between teaching, moving to Oregon and the Park Service was that I had enjoyed being a county peak ranger in the Santa Clara Valley. I’d spent a summer at a county park as a park ranger. I had three avenues for summer work because I wasn’t teaching. I went to the county park and they wanted me. They said, “We want you to work with kids cleaning up parks for the summer.” I thought, “I don’t think I want to do that since I work with kids all year. I would rather do something else.” As for the state system, I couldn’t even figure out how to apply and the only vacancy was as a technician doing bathroom clean up. I wasn’t really interested. My connection with Crater National Park was through Lloyd Smith, who was teaching in Grants Pass. He was kind of a guru of photography and I was teaching photography. Since I was teaching photography, I wanted some help from him. He was at South Middle School. I was at Hidden Valley, and went to talk with him about doing photography lesson plans. He was also teaching photography at Rogue Community College. He had evening classes in photography, and he taught math and some other things during the day to his junior high kids.

I walked into his classroom and saw two things that were kind of odd. One was a silhouette of a man with bullet holes all over him. The other one was a picture of him with his NPS patrol car. The lights were on and he standing next to it with his hat cocked, on the rim of Crater Lake. I had a clue that he was doing something that I really wanted to do. This was early in the year because class started in September. I’m sure this happened in September or October, 1977.

I asked him about working for the National Park Service and he said, “Why don’t you apply and just see what happens?” It’s definitely because of him that I got the application and filled it out (correctly) the first time. A lot of people take a couple of rounds to get it, but I actually got it right the first time. It was January, or maybe February, that Dan Sholly called me. He said, “We have your application and would you like to work for the National Park Service?” I was really happy about this. Since it meant moving to Crater Lake for the summer. Where as working at the state park—which would be Valley of the Rogue State Park—we could just live at home.

Was Marilyn equally excited?

I think she was, yes. There were three reasons that I was hired. One was that Dan Sholly called Lloyd, and asked three questions: the first, was I fat? Lloyd made sure that he knew that I wasn’t fat. (This had something to do with looking good in uniform). The second was that my in-laws (who lived in Grants Pass) had just finished building a house. While they were building their house they had a camp trailer to live in. I think Dan asked me, “Do you have a trailer?” I said yes. Housing was tight when Sleepy Hollow had only cabins. We had a son who was only a couple months old with us that first summer, and we were a family in a trailer. The third one was something Lloyd won’t let me forget- my name being Salinas. Those are the three reasons why I think I was hired. It doesn’t bother me, either way, because it was certainly wonderful to be up there.

You were hired to do interpretation?

I was hired as an interpreter. Tana Hill married Dan Sholly and became Tana Sholly. Since the chief and assistant chief of interpretation were not hired yet, Tana sent me the box of books aimed at interpreters. I was very excited to go through that material, and I still cherish many of those books today. It helped me with questions like what is interpretation? How do you meet people? How do you design walks and talks? All that stuff was just wonderful?

That must have been an interim period between George Morrison and Hank Tanski (1)? I know that Dan would have been the chief (2).

You know what’s really strange is that Dan would have been doing this because there was no interpretive staff at that time. There was just no one out there. Pat Smith was hired soon after that (3). And Hank was hired maybe at the same time Pat was, as chief and as assistant to interpretation. When I was hired I did not talk to Pat and I did not talk to Hank. The crew who worked that summer were hired all at the same time. Although I didn’t show up until June, Pat and Hank were probably hired a month or two before me.

That is when they made a separate division of interpretation. Frank Betts was in his last few months, before Jim Rouse replaced him (4).

Yes, exactly. We got up there and attended the welcome for seasonals night. Our son was young, so we couldn’t stay out past 10 o’clock. When Marilyn and I turned around to go back to our trailer, Nancy Betts, Frank’s wife, ran and grabbed us as we started to go. She said, “You can’t leave until I find out who you are and what you are doing.” It was a very warm family feeling, those first years that we were there.

Jim Rouse and I got along famously, too. I did a lot of extra interpretive work with him, thanks to Hank and Pat letting me put these special programs on my schedule. I worked with the Rotary Club in Shady Cove and the Masons who I think still go up there (5).

I was an interpreter for five years. Towards the end of those five years I could read the schedule very easily. The problem is that at the beginning of the season I felt like I almost knew where I was going to be everyday, and almost every hour through the season. This finally started to wear on me. There wasn’t much free time in the scheduling for research.

That eventually led me to think about doing some other things. I took a year’s leave from the high school district and I went to Oregon State to start a masters degree program in chemistry. When I did that, I asked the two resource management specialists at the time, Mark Forbes and Jon Jarvis, if there was a way for me to transfer from interpretation to resource management. They thought that would be a really good thing for me to do because of my research. It wasn’t hard for me to make the transition. It happened very easily.

Was your bachelor’s degree also in chemistry?

You know, it was actually physical science with an emphasis in physics and a minor in biology from San Jose State University. Another little twist was that San Jose State College had three names while I was there. It became California State University, San Jose, when I graduated and then a year later they shortened it to San Jose State University. I graduated in the one year that it had this unusual name, which is what is on my diploma.

Did you have any NPS contacts at that time? I was thinking about Carl Sharsmith who taught there.

I missed taking a class from him by one year. He retired teaching plant taxonomy and I had a guy named Dr. Savage. It was his first year doing plant taxonomy so it was kind of ragged. I ran across Carl Sharsmith giving an evening program at Yosemite and saw him at San Jose State in the hallway. I knew he was a wonderful person. I didn’t realize what a historical figure he was. I didn’t even talk to him about the Park Service or anything like that, I guess we could have. I also made friends with Dave Hartesveldt, whose dad did a lot of work with the giant sequoia and fire ecology. I was surrounded by Park Service people and didn’t realize it. I really enjoyed my job with the Park Service, doing the boat tours, leading walks, and giving talks. Probably the duty I enjoyed most was in Mazama Campground. Coming on duty later in the day, round noon, and preparing for the evening program. I did a circuit of the whole campground, walking it, inviting folks to the evening program. Then I set up the amphitheater, started the fire, and greeted folks. Of course, the evening programs led to a late night, getting home at eleven o’clock or so. Hank had arranged the schedule so that was your Monday and you could travel to the park that morning. He allowed us that travel time to start our day late. I appreciated it; that was really wonderful. For an interpreter the evening program was followed by three days of boats. In my tenure as an interpreter we were also doing living history.

Something we don’t do anymore.

That is pretty sad. It was such a wonderful thing, doing living history for the visitor. One day a week I was doing John Hillman, the discoverer of Crater Lake and at that time there were horses in the park. There’d be a patrol ranger on a horse in the parking lot of Rim Village. Also, I dressed up like a pioneer in his woolen clothes and talked to visitors about the discover of Crater Lake. In the campground, how many people could there be—maybe 200 or 300?

There were almost 200 camp sites, so maybe double that in the number of people.

There could be 400 people at the amphitheater. The largest group that I saw outside of the evening campfire programs was at these living history programs. The horse and I walked by the visitors who were looking at the lake and every head would turn. I would respond to that attention with, “Come on down, I’m going to talk about how Crater Lake was discovered.” I was then surrounded by visitors. After a 20 minute talk, the horse and I would take off and head for the woods, wait an hour or two and then come back and do it again. Hank worked it out to be three programs a day. Tom McDonough, Rod Cranson, Dave Hartlesveldt and I did living history programs because there were only a few people who wanted to saddle a horse and ride it to the rim. It came around once a week in our schedule.

Did Marion Jack supply the horses?

Marion Jack leased the horses to the park. There were probably three or four horses up there. Paul rangers would have them for hunting duty later in the season, and the interpreters shared them during the summer. It is really special to see a horse up there. Some of these urbanites don’t got to see a horse, ever. As for the kids, their eyes would light up and they’d run over. You would have to hold them back a little and them, “Now, don’t be tromping around my horse.” I’d tell them on each hoof there is at least 500 pounds, so be careful when you get close to this guy. I never had a bad experience on a horse up there and I always enjoyed that park of my duty.

For me there might be an evening program one day, a boat tour another day, maybe Hillman, and then roving Rim Village, and maybe another boat. That would be a typical five day work for me. The other thing I realized is that interpreters work holidays.

Going back to the living history program. Do you know how old that program was by the time you were doing it?

Gary Hoskins was part of our group and he was there with Tom McDonough, so they were kind of a pair as far as longevity goes. I’m sure it started years before I got there. I don’t think it was new with Pat and Hank (who supported it), because Marion Jack supplied the horse for years. Marion was probably there at Crater Lake as long as Lloyd Smith was.

Was it the only living history program?

Yes! The females on the staff weren’t happy about that. We [the male interpreters] were trying to think of a program that could include them.

A program featuring Annie Gaines?

Annie Gaines would have been a natural, but what would she do? Would she walk up to the rim in her gown? That’s not really an attention getter. The only thing that I did with a horse that involved the females on the staff was the roving ranger on the rim. I would show up with this horse and then the roving ranger would tell me that guns weren’t allowed in the park. This would happen because I had this fifty caliber black powder rifle with me. That’s quite a sight, I think. I would put dirt on my hat, take it off, and dust would go flying because I’d just ridden from Jacksonville—so of course I was dusty. They would always tell me to put my gun away, break it down, they would say. Finally I told one of the rangers I wanted to take her off into the woods with me. She got up behind me on the horse and we rode off together into the sunset.

You told me a story about Jim Rouse and how he participated in the program.

I guess the clothes I wore were close enough to modern day, so I was able to sit in a group of Rotarians. Jim Rouse stood up in the middle of them and started to give a talk on Crater Lake. He did the geology story and led up to the discovery. When he said that Chauncey Nye had discovered Crater Lake. That was my cue to stand up and start the John Hillman story. He was a card and enjoyed playing jokes on people, I think. When he said Chauncey Nye, I stood up and grabbed my gun from behind my seat and the whole group was kind of taken back. He did a great job of showing surprise like, “Who are you and where did you come from?” I said, “You better just set down and let me tell the real story.”

Did he do the talk at the Rim Visitor Center?

There was another gathering spot. I would take the horse trail up to Rim Village and I would show up near the lodge, by the campground (6). If I remember right, the gun was in the visitor center. I wouldn’t carry the gun all the way up and back. I would drop off my pack with my lunch in it and I would grab the gun. It was kind of like the Pony Express, I guess. As the horse came up, the interpreters in the Rim Visitor Center knew that they were going to take the pack and give me the gun. Then I would go out to cafeteria parking lot and do the program. I’d come back by and grab my day pack, and then go sit under a tree. There were three of those programs in a day. You reminded me that early in the summer there was a time when I gave one of the first evening programs in Rim Center (7). That was a wonderful meeting place for people who ate in the cafeteria, stayed in the lodge, or just walked around. The first evening programs I did on the rim were actually in the lodge. The dining room of course, is right next door in the Great Hall. There was a screen, a slide projector, and everything was set up for you. We would all do our programs right there in the lodge. A year or two later, maybe in 1980-81, we were using the Rim Center in the evening with the wood stove going. During one of these early programs, I asked a group of people, if they had any comments or questions about the park. One lady stood up and yelled, ‘Someone should tell the superintendent that we need toilet paper in that bathroom.” And I said, “I think that the superintendent has heard your pleas.” Jim Rouse was sitting in the audience and he didn’t move a muscle. I kind of looked at the ceiling so as not to give away his position. He was like that, I could joke with him, and he would appreciate it and know that I wasn’t really trying to trip him up at all. He didn’t give himself away that night, either. He didn’t stand up and say, “We will do something about this,” but he was alert.

Did the Hillman program last as long as you were an interpreter?

I want to say it ended soon after my five years. I think it went right to the end of my term. It might have been somewhere around 1982 that the living history programs was cut. When it was cut, I remember doing a picture for the little journal that the interpreters did at the end of the summer.

The Phanton Ship Log.

Yes. Rod Cranson was interested in that. If you look in that log there’s a picture of, I think it’s me, dressed up as John Hillman with a saddle over my shoulder walking out of the park. There were no horses any more. I think we took a park boundary sign and stuck it on a tree by Rat Hall (8). There would be a lot more living history if I was in charge. Imagine living history with a kids program. It would be awesome. Those kids would just be all eyes, asking, “Who is this guy, what does this mean? I want to know more about this.” That’s certainly a missing park to any interpretive program in a park that has such a rich history as we have. Ron Warfield either started or helped run a program as Lassen, which had a living history (9). There was a guy and a gal interpreter with the oxen that pulled carts. I don’t know if they were real oxen or what they used. They would drive up as the pioneers coming over the pass. He appreciated living history, but I don’t think he reinstated the Hillman program.

Was there a kid program at the rim?

Yes, there was. In addition to the kids programs at the rim, we thought about putting one down at the Mazama Campground also. I remember doing them in both places. One met at the Rim Center and involved sitting down a talk about fire and the many hats of a park ranger, or topics like that. The campground was a little better because that is where families were more abundant and centered. We would meet kids down at the amphitheater. I remember more of the rim kids programs rather than the Mazama kids programs.

I remember meeting the public at the Mazama Amphitheater so we could do the Annie Creek hike. The Garfield hike began in the morning and the Annie Creek hike was offered in the afternoon.

There could be a couple of people, in the Rim VC, and roving Rim Village doing the Hillman and Sinnott talks as well?

The visitor center on the rim would be our focus. We would be knocking shoulders at times as we switched. One rim rover was coming in while another one would be leaving. Those were one or two hours blocks of time. You would be in the visitors center selling books for two hours, then you’d be out on the rim for an hour or two, then you’d have lunch.

Was there a work room so that seasonals had some sort of office space?

Yes, that would have been in Rat Hall. The Naturalist Hall above the fire cache. At that time there were a couple desks, the slide file, and we had our meetings up there. At that time there was one big room and one huge heater, I think it had a blower on it.

It was still there until just a couple of years ago.

That baby would come on and blow papers off our desks. It was like a whirlwind up in that top office. As you walked into the big main room that we called Rat Hall, there’d be some rooms to the right and left, a bathroom, an office or two, and an audio room where we could make our music tapes for evening programs. The museum was in one of those west-facing offices.

Was there a place for photographic work? I know there were some dark room supplies?

The dark room was in the Administration Building at the top of the stairs. As you walk in turn left and go to the top of those stairs. The person who issues keys is in the spot where there was a dark room at that time (10). I spent a lot of my free time in the dark room.

Were the permanent interpreters in the Administration Building, too?

They were right in the center office looking out over the parking lot. Not the back parking lot, but the one right out front. Hank and Pat both had desks right next to each other. Maybe it wasn’t healthy for those two to be so close together for so long. In the winter I was intermittent, so I would do snow shoe walks. I would go up on the weekend and usually stay with Hank. He was single and had room for a guest (11).

The ski patrol was being started in the early eighties.

I don’t remember a whole lot about the ski patrol. Marian Masters could probably fill you in on that (12).

Were the snowshoe walks taken from the Cafeteria or did you open up the Rim Center?

It was the Rim Center. All the snowshoes were hanging up in the back, or were left on the floor of the Rim Center. Visitors would walk in at one o’clock and they would meet the ranger. It would be cold in there, but there would be no reason to start a fire because we wouldn’t be in the building very long. We would show them how to put the snowshoes on, and we would go out for a hike. When I was around there was a concession that rented skies and probably some snowshoes. They were in the Rim Center also. The folks who ran the ski service lived in Grants Pass. They moved to the cafeteria when the Rim Center was closed to rent skis and things like that. They had a whole section, the left side of the cafeteria, so 40 or 50 feet was counter. They would have all their skis and stuff sitting right there.

Was there a snow tunnel that went from the roadway to the Rim Center or was it just plowed or dug out?

One of my duties in winter was to cut steps to the top of the snow bank from the parking lot in front of the Rim Center. I then made a little trail back to the building and had it drop down onto the porch. If the program started at 1:00, I guess I’d be there at 11:00 starting to cut my steps. It took a while to do that.

How did people see the lake at that time? Was there a viewing tunnel?

I don’t think the tunnel was there at that time. Visitors would have to stand on top of the snow pile between the parking lot and the edge of the caldera.

Did they have to cut steps for people to climb the pile of snow?

I think there were some steps cut, or the front of the rotary was used to make some sort of a ramp. That was dangerous for people to be out on that bank where they blew all the snow off the parking lot. How did we get on winter? We jumped right to it.

It came from your summer duties and the wide range of interpretive programs.

Those first five years I was doing all these things. I switched from the summer full time seasonal to intermittent because I was close by and they could call me. I enjoyed talking to people about the weather and all that. People from Grants Pass didn’t realize that I beat them up there by minutes to do this program. I could tell them all about the weather in the park the last couple of days and how much snow fell. They would say, “And where are your from?” I would say, “I’m from Grants Pass, too.” I didn’t lie to them about where I was from, but if they didn’t ask, I wouldn’t tell them, either.

As an intermittent you would go up on Saturday morning and come back Sunday night?

Yes, spent Saturday and Sunday up there. I sometimes worked on interpretive projects, doing signs. I actually did some routering and painting. I know that they’ve cut down on the use of the shops by just anybody. But when I was there, if you needs something done, you had to go in and find the drill and the screws, and the wood, and do it. Repairing snowshoes was anther duty that I had, maybe on a Sunday morning.

I know that the folks who ran the ski service named the Hemlock Trail.

The Raven is down below and the Hemlock is around the top of the meadow south of the lodge (13).

Did your walks follow those routes?

That would be a little far for a showshoe walk. I do remember leaving the back of Rim Center going through what is now the picnic ground and staying away from the lake. It was a forest walk, going along the ridge behind the dormitory, and over to a nice long hill straight down to the meadow. I would actually have people run down that to feel what it’s like to run in snowshoes. Half of us would fall over. Sometimes the ranger would fall. Once down to the meadow, we would walk up to the lodge and look at the drifts around it. East of the lodge is really an icy and windy spot. You can see the lake though, because there was snow is mostly scoured there. We then cut around to the front of the lodge, and headed back to Rim Center. It wasn’t a long hike, but it was far enough to let people enjoy the outdoors and listen to stories of winter survival, including adaptations by animals and plants to the snow conditions. Weather was a topic. I asked them about why does Crater Lake get so much precipitation? How does this affect keeping the park open?

Are there any analogies to the classroom as far as doing interpretation?

The snowshoe hike was definitely a winter or snow ecology walk and I think it probably still is today. I want to have people think about summer in the park, and then consider how winter affects the plants and animals. Did you see any animals today? How are they able to survive in twelve, fifteen or twenty feet of snow? How can a Clark’s nutcracker do that? That would lead to the ecology of the nutcracker. When the trees are covered with ice, is that good thing? It is a good thing, since that protects the trees from the wind and from drying out. We also talked about winter drought. The weekend was really quite enjoyable. I remember Jim Donovon, another single ranger up there. He had room for people to stay, also. I’d stay with Hank and stay with Jim and enjoy stories of the park for a short time, and then go back to Grants Pass.

Switching back to summer, what were some of your evening programs?

I had two in the five years that I was there. The first year we had a big chalkboard with suggested topics. It suggested that someone should do a evening program on the geology, that someone should do a program on the trees, et cetera. The folks who were accustomed to this kink of straw drawing, drew very quickly and I was left with trees.

I thought I could probably do a good program on trees, but how do you organize a tree program? I organized mine by elevation. As you drive into the park at the South Entrance there are aspen and then you see the whitebark pine way up on the rim. I had about seven different tree species that I went through. I discussed their ecology, cones, leaves, and bark types. The nice thing about the program was visitors frequently told me afterwood that they had learned something. They could go out the next day and identify some trees. The program ended after my first year because I personally didn’t enjoy it all that much.

I think it was in the winter of 1978-79 that I skied around the lake with friends of mine. Hank gave me about seven rolls of film, so I took pictures and I still have them. I took the best of those, about eighty slides in a carousel, and I gave them to Hank. I asked him to look through them and see if there was anything he would like for the permanent file. I found the carousel later the next summer untouched, so I took it back home. I realized he didn’t have time to look at it. Those slides are still there, and in the end they will come to the park, I suppose. There were many, many pictures of skiing around the lake. I put together a winter program that I did for the next couple of years. It started off with, “How would you like to move your camper out of this campground parking lot in twelve feet of snow?” Then I showed pictures that a visitor could connect with, like the amphitheater in twelve feet of snow. It had a big pile of snow on top of the screen. The bathroom has these big blocks of ice and snow on top. They could really get a feeling for what its like when we have snow in the park. I focused on weather in my winter talk.

I didn’t do a snow shoe walk in summer, but I talked about the animals and the plants, and the snow blowers. I ended with, “You should enjoy your ability to move around the park today because Crater Lake isn’t like this typically.” I would scold people who would come up in the two months when there was no snow, instead of the ten months when the place is buried. This is not something you think about as you drive up in the summer, when it is warm, the sun is out and the sky is blue. I think the title was “The Winter Scene.” I was trying to get across the point that Crater Lake is typically under snow. That’s what I did for four years.

Your last season was 1982.

Yes, five years—1978, ’79, ’80, ’81, and ’82 –I guess that is right. I switched over to resource management in 1983. I worked in that three summers, then in 1985 I graduated. I didn’t get my master’s degree but I finished graduate school at that point and started teaching at Rogue Community College.

Did you have to do your graduate program part time?

No, I was full time in 1982-83. I taught one more high school year in 1983-84. Then I went back to graduate school in 1985. I was done with the classes, but I wasn’t finished writing. About a year or two later I finished my thesis, and successfully defended it.

What was your thesis topic?

My thesis topic was, “A Critical Comparison of Methods for Determination of Phytoplanktonic Chlorophyll.”

It was based on Crater Lake?

Yes. It started with my work at Crater Lake. I don’t know if you saw the connection or not, but in 1978, my first year as an interpreter, Doug Larson showed up in the park. Hank and Pat asked him to do an evening program for the interpreters. It was in June, and he stood up in front of us and talked about Crater Lake. He said, “Since I’m here I am going out on the lake and if anybody would like to join me, I’d welcome your help.” It turned out I had the day off on the day he was going to work. I didn’t have to ask permission to get out of the rotation or anything. I had to ask my wife’s permission and was able to connect with him for a day on the lake.

There was a pontoon boat out there that they called the African Queen or the African Queen II. One of those boats got ripped apart in a winter storm because we didn’t get down there fast enough to take it out. We were out there in this pontoon boat doing our work and the water needed to be filtered. You could do that on the boat but Doug let me off on the island. I spent my day filtering samples with a hand pump, which is a lot of puling liquid through the filters. So my first day of limnology amounted to sitting in the boat house looking out at the lake while they were out there doing their other work, but I was happy to help.

As it turns out, I don’t know if everyone can say this, but I can say that it was the single day that changed my life. To be with this person doing research on the lake and to realize that I was very interested in not just floating around the lake but trying to understand what the lake was doing. Doug’s personality was attractive to me for some reason. He was very encouraging, respectful, and open with all the things that he was doing. Doug was really a teaching limnologist and he shared his work with the whole staff. I felt real comfortable working with him. In 1978, 79, and 80, Doug returned a couple times. I think he was even given release time as a federal employee with the Army Corps of Engineers to work in the park (14). I don’t know if the release time was a 60 -40 or 80 -20 percentage, but he spent time developing a lake program. By 1982 it looked like we were going to start a full-fledged program of research.

This was because of the legislation?

Right! During the summer of 1982 the Park Service was very interested to get ahead of the legislation. They didn’t want to be told what to do. They wanted to say, “We already have a lake monitoring program in place. Thank you for helping us with this (15)”. We were making our protocols and there was a person hired for working on the lake. Mike Gillmore was running the boat. He did sampling every week or two, and took care of the equipment, building sampling boxes—some of which we still use today. They’ve lasted a long time. I would help him when I could. I was still an interpreter in 1982, so I couldn’t be there long. Mike was resource management with Jon Jarvis and Mark Forbes, they were all in a group. I became the forth member of the lake group in 1983. A year later Mike left to do other things. He finished his master’s degree about then, in urban planning (16). I think his degree had something to do with Crater Lake, since he spent time talking to visitors, finding out what their pattern of activities were as they came into the park.

Were there program goals at that time, and was Doug Larson the principal investigator?

Absolutely! Doug was calling the shots on the lake at that time. One of his methods to get us to work for him really worked. He wrote a protocol for the lake research and put my name on it. In the end I don’t know if it came out with both our names on the protocol, but I seem to remember that I felt really a part of what was going one. I don’t know about program goals. Doug would say this is what we should be doing and that is what we did. Basically it was a monitoring effort. That effort expanded when the Park Service hired a limnologist.

[Break to change side of tape.]

We left off with Doug Larson working to develop protocol for the lake monitoring in 1982. You mentioned, Steve , that there was some legislation directed the Park Service to start a monitoring program. I guess that legislation didn’t come with any money.

It just told the NPS to find money.

The missing piece here is, could Doug Larson have started a monitoring program just by asking for it? The answer is probably no. he was one of many passing limnologists who just happened to be in the park for a certain period of time. Doug was fortunate in being given some authority to actually do some paid work. What Doug realized was that Crater Lake could be in trouble and he wrote that it had lost 25 percent of its clarity. What happened was that in 1968 and 69 when he was finishing his degree in limnology, he was getting secchi disk reading of 40 meters for Crater Lake. When I was with him in 1978-79 he was getting 30s. If you compare 30 to 40, Crater Lake had lost 25 percent of its clarity. He asked what is the Park Service doing about it? Could the NPS be faulted for this current problem? The Park Service didn’t want to hear any of this. It sounded bad, so any Park Service manager wouldn’t want to hear this. I don’t know how it happened, but then Doug is quite a letter writer. He wrote to the Oregonian. He copied his letter to every legislator that he knew in Oregon and probably the President of the United States. It hit a high note in the political system. Managers of the Park Service were asked, “What is going on out there?” That is why the legislation was passed and I’m sure that is why the Park Service wanted to already have a monitoring program in place (17). They [park management] didn’t want to be told to start a program.

Very close to this time there was a opening for a Park Service limnologist. Doug applied for it since he did his Ph.D at Crater Lake. Doug was closet to the project. He knew more than anyone as far as Crater Lake went and threw his hat in the ring. I didn’t know Gary Larson at the time, and I’m not sure of who else applied for the position. Mark Forbes would know all this.

There was also another Larson. Jim Larson was a chief scientist for the region in Seattle, so we had three Larsons all mixed up in this at once. I’ll never forget the day that Doug found out that he did not get the position. Doug’s usual plan of action was to leave Portland at 3 or 4 in the morning and to pull into the park at 6 and have breakfast in the Cafeteria. We would meet him with the equipment ready to go to work about 7, which is when we went on duty. We would all go down to the lake together. Mark Forbes joined him for breakfast and told him that he wasn’t going to get the position. If I remember right, Doug turned around and went back to Portland. He wasn’t in very good spirits that whole day. You know he was branded as a non-team player. I think he did everything he could with the Park Service but he kept hitting the closed door. He didn’t know what else to do, so he just started writing letters.

Did the connection with Oregon State begin at this time when the limnologist was hired?

Ed Starkey worked for the CPSU (18). It doesn’t exist today but that was the Cooperative Park Study Unit and that is where this limnologist would be based. The aquatic ecologist there would be working at Mount Rainier, Olympic and at Crater was about 60 percent of the job, I think. That is what Gary Larson was hired to do.

We can talk now about some of the goals, objective and issues. Doug talked a lot about goals, and he still does, but at the time I don’t think he had any directed research. It was basically background monitoring of the lake itself. In the past maybe 15 years, Gary spawned a series of research projects on the lake involving all kinds of things, including the submarine program, of course. I don’t know if he directly managed that whole program but he certainly had a hand in it. While we had the submersible in the park, Jack Dymond and Bob Collier were the PI’s, but Gray was involved in that also. Doug was essentially dropped from the program. One day he was there and the next he was gone. He did go out on research boat once since then, but he’s never really wanted to go back down to the lake and do work. He’s never really been asked to do anything in the park. Gary has much of Doug’s early data. Doug works with Gary very closely as far as Gary needing historic data, and as far as Doug getting recent data. It works both directions, and I think they work together as well as can be expected.

If all the letters and all the communications were public between the two it would show that Doug has written some letters that would really make people mad. For instance, when the 10 year report came out, Doug basically ripped it apart and asked the same questions, “Does this report answer your basic charge in the legislation, to study and protect the lake?” It looks like you’ve done a lot of other research that may not be in the same vein as the charge you were given. He sent that letter to all the congressmen. The scientists working on the lake today felt pretty hurt that he would try to do this to them, even though the science that they did was as good as any that could be done.

Didn’t the number of scientists working on Crater Lake increase markedly?

Oh absolutely, with Jack Dymond, Bob Collier, and Goldman. Charles Goldman was part of the planning for a 10 year program through the AAA S and held at Oregon State. He convened that presentation. There were a lot of experts in every field brought in just to answer the simple question, “Has Crater Lake changed?” I think that is what Gary Larson is after right now. The problem is that some of the methods used in the early research weren’t documented well enough to repeat, so we don’t know exactly what some of the numbers mean. A Secchi disk dept of 45 meters in 1936, what does that mean? What was the size of the disk, what was the day like, who was doing the observing? We don’t know any of that. Today we have lots of Secchi data and I know that Gary is going through that with a fine tooth comb looking for trends. If you asked him today, he would say that we just don’t have enough data. It could take decades before we see some kind of repeating cycle or tend in the clarity of the lake, for instance. That goes for phytoplankton, zooplankton, fish and all of those things. Mark Buktenica has worked up there many years, too. The fish cycle is pretty well documented now because of his work. Some of the biological cycles are shorter than the long term physical cycles of the lake itself, which would depend on climate.

Did you work consecutive years starting in 1983?

I finished my graduate work in 1985. For some reason I thought I was done with my old life, and my new life would now start with something professional. I started working for an environmental consulting group in Medford, Neilson Research. They were doing work with Crater Lake on bacteria. They needed a chemist. I was in Corvallis and this was in Medford. I thought, what were the chances of me finding a chemistry position is southern Oregon? I left graduate school to work for this group. I think Doug was involved in this, too. Doug and John Nielson had worked together. John mentioned to Doug that he was looking for a chemist and Doug mentioned this to me. I met John and he hired me as a full time chemist in Medford. That was maybe September 1985, but by Thanksgiving, I was let go. He was bidding on some government projects that didn’t come through. The day before Thanksgiving was my last day of work for this environmental firm and this was kind of devastating. I thought this job was it.

The person bidding against Neilson on some of these projects was John Burnett. He worked with Chinook Research in Lebanon, which is right across Highway 34 from Corvallis. Burnett was working on Lost Creek and Applegate Lake, so I contacted him and asked if he need someone in limnology that could do this work on these two reservoirs. He hired me. In 1986 and ’87 I worked for him on these reservoir projects. I was also hired full time at the community college in 1986. This all happened in less than a week. The day before Thanksgiving I lost my job but Monday after Thanksgiving weekend I was working full time at the college because the physics teacher had suffered a heart attack.

What a change?

I didn’t even have a day off, Steve. It just fell together. I had talked to people here who knew I was interested in teaching. I walked into the classroom and I grinned the whole day. I knew that I was a teacher. I really hadn’t planned on teaching, but it kind of fell my way and I realized that this was a part of life that I really enjoyed. Being with young people and preparing lessons and grading papers. It really is a challenge to be with people everyday and to be stimulating.

I taught the rest of the year part-time. I was put on full time the following fall. I told them I needed a full time position or else I was going to have to find something else. The college realized it had four science instructors, all biologists. They didn’t have any physical science instructors- no physics, no chemistry, no astronomy, no meteorology, no geology. I was the person hired to fill that physical science niche. I’ve been here now 12 years. This job did a couple things, including freeing me for summer again. The job with John Burnett ended in 1987 on a really bitter note, with a court case where it was found that he owed me about $13,000 that I never received. He went bankrupt and left the state, which was kind of sad. I inherited a lot of his equipment. I was able to continue work with limnological equipment that I bought from him at his auction when he sold his lab.

Is that when you connected with Greg Bennett?

I would call us both hustlers. We were both looking for opportunities to get work. Of course summer for me were a complete blank, so I could do anything, Greg was in the same situation. Some how we were both connected with Doug. It may be that Greg’s wife, Sharon, was a boat pilot for the concessionaire. Doug connected us both with the person who was successful in this bid to work on these two reservoirs. In February 1986 we started working for John Burnett doing research on these two reservoirs. To be honest, I’ve never worked with anyone as closely and as well as I’ve worked with Greg. We were both very responsible and didn’t ever let each other down. We worked together for 22 months and every week we would go out to these reservoirs. The monitoring and samples were taken for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. It was hard when the project ended, and it ended bitterly, because John Burnett was not doing all the work that he was contracted to do. The Corps of Engineers said that all the fieldwork was being done wonderfully and they wanted us to keep doing it. The lab work was in such bad shape that they didn’t have any other avenue but to stop. I was let go again towards the end of the 1987. The whole project ended, within weeks of me leaving. I think they call it defaulting. It was actually awful working for John Burnett because he would not support us as managers in the field. When we needed equipment, people, or supplies, we would have to buy it out of our own pocket. He would give us whatever money he could afford, both for salary and supplies. I was spending the money he sent me to run his project and putting very little away for myself. I wasn’t making any money. I was enjoying the work, but not getting paid what he said he was going to pay me. In the end we went to court, and he went bankrupt.

Did you do monitoring at Odell and Waldo later on?

Doug was also working on Waldo Lake. I won’t call it a coincidence, but it is a similar situation where Gary Larson is getting involved on Waldo Lake through the Willamette National Forest. Doug Larson has been monitoring Waldo since 1986 or so, which was exactly the time I was working on Crater. I joined him for expeditions to Waldo Lake using his equipment. I would take my boat up there and work with him on the lake. He depened on me for the research boat end of it. When Burnett went bankrupt, I had all the equipment that could help him on various lake in the state. Waldo was a particular interest and still is because its also ultra oligotrophic, with even less nutrient availability than at Crater. At very clear, pure body of water.

He included several lakes in his Ph.D. research, which encompassed Odell, Waldo, Woahink, and Crater. There might be another lake in there, too. His Ph.D. dissertation compared various lakes, I think there were five or so. I’m still interested in Waldo Lake and am still working with the Willamette National Forest. Waldo is more connected now to Oregon State in research. Doug has worked for the Willamette National Forest mostly as a volunteer. He has made some Forest Service people mad regarding Waldo, but we have an amiable relationship at this time.

So there is some similarities with respect to issues?

The question you asked is there anything we could compare related to Crater Lake (19). The Forest Service has three gigantic campgrounds with septic systems. Thousands of people go to Waldo Lake each summer. Doug was really concerned with contamination of the lake. We didn’t really go over Doug’s theory for what the Park Service was doing to Crater, but of course, it had to do with septic leach fields up on the rim and I’m sure he had the same fears and feelings for the clarity at Waldo Lake (20). Doug has a way of alienating people when he wants something. He pushes very, very hard and has the ability to make people not want to listen to him. Doug wrote letters and the pressure to change comes from politicians, but where does that put him? You know he’s proud that his rubber raft on Crater Lake has led to a $160,000 a year program that funds lake monitoring. He’s really done some wonderful work. When Gary, Scott, and Mark—the people who work in the Crater Lake program—reflect on what Doug did, they are appreciative that this program came about because of his early work. They are really happy world class research is being done on a world class lake. Without what Doug’s actions, they wouldn’t be doing research at Crater Lake.

How significant were the submarine dives in 1988 and 1989 to the Crater Lake Program?

When I was starting out as an interpreter, standing at the top of Cleetwood Cove, more than once people would ask about Jacques Cousteau and a submarine on Crater Lake. I would just laugh. I couldn’t believe that anyone could even speculate that there would be a submarine in Crater Lake. This is ridiculous. How would it get down there? Can you imagine the cost? How would you get a hold of Jacques to get him to come here? I didn’t see it ever happening. It wasn’t very many years later that I turned around and there was a helicopter with a submarine hanging from its belly headed for the park. I don’t know exactly how I found out, but as soon as I realized that there was this submarine program happening in 1988, I called the park and asked if there was a chance that I could work for them again and help out. They needed all the help they could get. They said, “Don’t even ask twice, you’re on.” I went back in 1988 and started again.

I can just imagine Mark Buktenica and his seasonals working in the lab. It’s not something Mark likes to do. If you are not thinking about the chemistry that is happening at the time that you are doing it, it’s pretty dull. I enjoy it, because I realize what this means. I really enjoy watching all the numbers as they come out of these devices we use up there. For two years (1986-87) they didn’t have me. I returned in 1988 because I could run the boats, the tractor, the lab and they didn’t have to worry about it. I could handle a lot of the background work. The 1989 season was exactly the same thing. I also didn’t need housing since I brought my own trailer up to the park.

How significant were the submarine dives in 1988 and 1989 to the Crater Lake Program?

When I was starting out as an interpreter, standing at the top of Cleetwood Cove, more than once people would ask about Jacques Cousteau and a submarine on Crater Lake. I would just laugh. I couldn’t believe that anyone could even speculate that there would be a submarine in Crater Lake. This is ridiculous. How would it get down there? Can you imagine the cost? How would you get a hold of Jacques to get him to come here? I didn’t see it ever happening. It wasn’t very many years later that I turned around and there was a helicopter with a submarine hanging from its belly headed for the park. I don’t know exactly how I found out, but as soon as I realized that there was this submarine program happening in 1988, I called the park and asked if there was a chance that I could work for them again and help out. They needed all the help they could get. They said, “Don’t even ask twice, you’re on.” I went back in 1988 and started again.

I can just imagine Mark Buktenica and his seasonals working in the lab. It’s not something Mark likes to do. If you are not thinking about the chemistry that is happening at the time that you are doing it, it’s pretty dull. I enjoy it, because I realize what this means. I really enjoy watching all the numbers as they come out of these devices we use up there. For two years (1986-87) they didn’t have me. I returned in 1988 because I could run the boats, the tractor, the lab and they didn’t have to worry about it. I could handle a lot of the background work. The 1989 season was exactly the same thing. I also didn’t need housing since I brought my own trailer up to the park.

How complex was the unmanned submersible in 1987?

I don’t know a lot about that. The video produced in 1987 with a remote vehicle (ROV) probably helped in getting the money for the submarine program. I’m a little out of that loop. I just know that we had the unmanned submersible, the ROV, available to us. In case something happened, we could go down and work the remote vehicle, the rover. That is as close as I saw the ROV operate, but it was never used during the submarine program.

Several months ago we discussed the three factors that came into play that allowed the submarine to come to Crater Lake.

I guess I was at the top of Cleetwood Cove Trail, when I saw the car caravan go by. It was filled with BLM people.

They lease minerals?

It was like a parade. I realized later that this was the beginning of some exploration that was taking place near the park. Why was there an underwater research program designed and funded for Crater Lake? The three reasons that I came up with were these: number one, the park was under some threat—either real or perceived-it doesn’t matter. People were drilling into the hot rocks below the lake, in very close proximity of the park. What Cal Energy was hoping to do was find a source of geothermal energy. Planes were flying over and crews were taking samples on the ground. They were doing everything they could to pinpoint the spot to put some wells. I’m not sure how many feet or miles they drilled. That would be east of Mount Scott. Those wells are all locked up now. I don’t know if they have been filled in or anything, but I know that they have been secured so that no one could misuse them. They’ve more or less abandoned those wells. As I said, number one in those years was a threat. The Park Service felt that this could be detrimental to the park and Crater Lake specifically. The second reason was that there were people working in the park at the time, Bob Collier and Jack Dymond, who had done underwater exploration. They had a good feeling for the lake system, the physical nature of the upwelling and the heat coming up from the bottom of the lake.

They’re oceanographers.

They are expert oceanographers. They’re been in the Alvin, and they’ve handled probably the most complex situations with underwater research. Jack is an underwater oceanographic geologist and Bob is a chemist. Together they were quite the dynamic duo in planning and writing up all the objectives for this research. If you look at some of the news broadcasts, they would say that in no way were they trying to prove that the drilling on the flanks of the mountain would influence the lake. That would be far too difficult to do and it wasn’t really part of their research. Their work was pointed toward finding a geothermal connection to the lake. They were looking for a hot spring or geysers on the bottom that might prompt legislation. If the lake had hydrothermal activity, then there could be a larger zone of protection for the park itself. I think that the Park Service was hoping to fight the threat with this research. The third step was funding. I’m not sure how this works, but there are emergency funds for research. Those are the three pieces: a threat, people who could run the project, and funding. I feel those three things allowed us to work with the submarine for two summers.

The continued interest of the USGS helped, too.

Once the sub was on location, it cost tens of thousands of dollars just to get it in the lake. How many days do you want the sub? How much research do you plan on doing? Who has money to support this research? I think the Monterey Bay Aquarium bought one day of research, and I forget the name of the fellow [Robuson] that came up. They put him in the sub and down he went. Charlie Bacon, of the USGS, bought some days. I don’t know how many. There were days that we called geology dives, where Mark Buktenica was the pilot working for Charlie Bacon. Charlie would have been in the sub if he had wanted to go. He bought the day and explained to the crew that he had risked his life over a cliff often enough and he wasn’t willing to do it again. Mark would say, “ I think I’ve found an interesting rock.” Charlie would say, “No you’re not deep enough, go further.” He was directing from the top what was going on down below.

Did Hans Nelson have an active role?

I don’t think I saw him up there at that time. The submarine crew would take a day or two off during our time for measuring trends on the lake. At that point we would move the pontoon boat over from a central data processing area (with computers and all the navigational aids we needed to follow the sub around the lake) to our trend boat to do our sampling. This would happen only those two days, because every other day the sub was in action. Some NPS people would work six or seven days a week; they wouldn’t take a day off. I made more money those summers in overtime than I made in regular time. We would go out at night, getting back at 2 a.m. after starting at seven in the morning. I’d get something to eat and be back out on the lake be eight o’clock and work until midnight. We could easily do a 16 hour day on the lake. Oceanographers are used to ship time. You have a ship on the ocean, you’re working day and night. You might have two crews working. We had one crew at work.

Several graduate students were out there. Jim McManus was one of them who got his Ph.D. in work involving Crater Lake. He would want to do some research, such as mapping the bottom of the lake. You can’t do that when the sub is in the water. The research boat has to be in communication, which means directly overhead so our underwater phones could talk to each other. When the sub was put away, the other research could happen-the other things that needed to be done. You couldn’t do that when the sub was in the water. The focus was on the sub for those dive days.

The money that came with it allowed a lot of things to happen at once?

The graduate students were probably being paid as research assistants. And they all had projects. The Ph.D. and the research assistants were all working together as one research team. There were thoughts thrown out that working on Crater Lake was more difficult then working on the ocean. On a ship you had every thing you needed, but on Wizard Island there were some things you had to call out for—getting them wasn’t simple. You had to go across the lake, then up the trail, drive around, and if you needed to go to Klamath Falls or Medford or Corvallis, holy mackerel. You are located a day or two away from getting anything if you found yourself short. Bob Collier’s wife, Pat, was instrumental in keeping the food in the right place at the right time. Coolers were running back and forth constantly. They were using House 19 as a food preparation place (21). The food would come down and you’d feed perhaps a dozen people down there. Navigators, managers for the sub, Park Service people, and all the research staff. We had quite a village down there on Wizard Island at that time.

The one thing I didn’t realize at first was that the sub was electrical . The batteries in the boat would be charged each shift. Sleeping by the boathouse would be difficult. They couldn’t shut it off at night. Some of us took zodiacs around the island to sleep in other coves. There aren’t many places where you can throw your sleeping bag out on Wizard Island. We would carry plywood and throw a piece of it out for a floor and I would put my tent and sleeping bag on a cot. I was comfortable there. You really had to think about putting a tent up on Wizard Island. I mean, what do you tie it to? Those were good times. I really enjoyed all of it.

How would you compare following year with 1988?

As it turned out, Steve, I changed position again. Both summers, 1988 and 1989, were similar. I thought you meant 1990, what happened after the sub left.

Oh, no.

The summer of 1988 and 1989 were very similar. This is where we prepared for the submarine, we had the fly-ins with helicopters, the generators, the 55 gallon drums of diesel for the generator. These were huge. We probably had a dozen of these 55 gallon drums that we couldn’t move. The helicopter had a place them right next to the generator. Then the generator was connected to these drums and drew its fuel out of there. All this planning had to take place before August, since we didn’t have much time. The summer crew comes on in the middle of June, so you have maybe six weeks to get the whole place in order. We also had our monitoring projects going on, overlapping this sub program that fit on top of it. These were very similar years with monitoring taking place alongside the high adventure submarine amid all the media attention. I think almost everyday there was a newspaper or magazine or TV crew coming on board to take some pictures of what we were doing out there. That was a pretty exciting time. In 1990 I went back to doing other things. I spent the following summers doing other projects, working for the college a bit. What I didn’t let go of was the work in the lab.

What happens when you monitor the lake??

We call it a trend week, a time of intense work on Crater Lake. It follows this protocol that Gary Larson has developed, which I don’t think is much different than what Doug Larson did. I go up for a couple of days and spend some time in the boat, and the lab. I complete the analysis done in the field lab and prepare samples for shipment to Corvallis. Each month I have this block of time, a couple of days that I spend in the park. I guess that has happened from 1990 onward. Gary Larson calls me and says, “I have your contract ready for this summer.”

And yet you’ve maintained a parallel track in teaching the summer college field studies class at Crater Lake.

The field class is another connection between the community college and the park because I do enjoy working up there. For me, summer is the time to do something different and you can’t really do field studies in the winter because of the weather. Students are not interested in being out in the rain or snow. I try to pick the best season that people would be the most comfortable, so the class is in August. I try to schedule it as late in August as I can, but our summer term end about the middle of August. I also come up for the trend work that is done each month.

How and when did the class start?

It started on paper at the college campus before it started in the woods. I had a backpacking class that didn’t work. People didn’t want to hike. I then tried a shorter backpacking class and it didn’t work, either. People weren’t interested in putting packs on, so eventually I hit on the idea that we would camp at Mazama Campground. We wouldn’t carry anything with us and we would do these days hikes. From the campground we’d drive out to points of interest and day hike. It seemed to be the ticket to get people interested in hiking in the park. I challenged myself to take them places they wouldn’t typically go. When someone drives to Crater Lake and gets out of their car and walks over to the rim, they probably wouldn’t include a hike to Boundary Springs. I try to take them places that maybe the Park Service wouldn’t suggest to everyone. One hike we enjoy doing is the Dutton Creek Trial. We hike down from the rim, toward Mazama Campground. That’s not amazing to people who work in the park, but it’s really unusual to go from being shoulder to shoulder with people on the rim and in five minutes being completely alone in the forest. Crater Lake is a place where that happens—you can take just a few steps down a trail and not have any idea that there are thousands of people behind you in the parking lot. Most people don’t go down these trails. My challenge is to get this group of people away from the main haunts of the park. It’s not hard to do, not hard to do at all.

Do you bring limnology into the class?

I do. Each year I try to focus on a different specialty. One year we actually hiked up to the Whitehorse Ponds area where I did a project for the Crater Lake Natural History Association. Another year I took the group to Diamond Lake, brought them out on my boat and showed them how to do zooplankton tows. That was true limnology. The Whitehorse Ponds study (22)—involved temperature measurements as well as identifying plants and animals tracks in some of the mud up there. In other years I’ve taken them to do some stream work. They enjoyed surveying Lost Creek one year. I call that the lab segment of the field studies.

The field studies are a three day commitment. The lab segment, which is a separate credit, involves a fourth day. We do something a little bit more rigorous on that fourth day. We actually measure and look at the water more specifically, or whatever we’re intensely studying that year. Last year we had Ron Mastrogiuseppe give an excellent workshop on fire ecology. He actually had students measuring trees and taking data. After we arrived in Grants Pass, we plotted all this date and looked at young, middle-aged, and older trees that had survived, or had grown, since the fire had gone through that area in the Panhandle. I try to do something different each year and it helps me to stay excited about taking groups up there. We also camped at Lost Creek Campground last year for the first time. That was different than Mazama—there are no showers.

Did you like the contrast?

Oh, it was no problem for me. I have to think of the group experience, though. They were not able to buy milk, call a spouse, or get a newspaper. The store at Mazama, however, allows them to buy a coffee in the morning if they don’t have time to make it, take a shower, get gas. To get a group from Grants Pass to camp at Mazama is easier than getting a group from Grants Pass to Lost Creek.

Working with Gary Larson and Mark Buktenica and Scott Girdner on the trend studies in the chemistry lab, and then leading the field studies in August—those are my two connections with the park right now. I’m working on a third connection, which would involves having the Park Service sponsor students doing some stream studies. I have a crew of students here with me doing some work for the Forest Service. What is know about the park’s streams right now is mostly confined to the eastside, and what I’m offering Mark is some work on Westside streams.

Like for Copeland Creek and Bybee Creek?

That work hasn’t been done. Scott is probably more interested than Mark right now, in doing some preliminary surveys. These initial surveys might point out some hotspots where more research will be needed.

Footnotes:

  1. Both served as what later became known as the Assistant Chief of Interpretation.
  2. Chief of Interpretation and Resource Management, whose title was changed to Chief Ranger after 1978.
  3. Smith was the first Chief of Interpretation, roughly equivalent to what had been the Chief Park Naturalist before 1969.
  4. Rouse became Superintendent in August 1978.
  5. Crater Lake Lodge of the Freemasons, located in Klamath Falls.
  6. A picnic area since 1975.
  7. Also known by its original name, the Community House (building #116).
  8. Building #5.
  9. Warfield served as Chief of Interpretation from 1981 to 1986, and had been at Lassen prior to arriving at Crater Lake.
  10. The office assigned to the current project assistant in maintenance.
  11. Hank Tanski lived in house #28 from 1978 t o1988.
  12. Former ski patrol member, presently librarian at Rogue Community College.
  13. Both are signed with diamonds placed on trees. The hemlock is a loop, while the Raven roughly corresponds to a road built in 1905 from Park Headquarters to Rim Village.
  14. Doug Larson worked in the Portland office of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
  15. Legislation primarily aimed at making a boundary revision (to allow for a timber sale that had been sold prior to 1980) containing a provision mandating a 10 year program of lake monitoring.
  16. See Michael W. Stohr-Gillmore, “Environmental Management Appraisal of Crater Lake, Oregon,” thesis, University of Oregon, June 1983.
  17. A monitoring program was one of the priorities in the park’s resource management Plan approved as part of the GMP in 1981.
  18. Starkey is a wildlife biologist based in Corvallis. Other CPSUs in the Pacific Northwest were at the University of Washington and University of Idaho.
  19. Waldo Lake is the second deepest lake in Oregon. Clarity findings there often exceed Those on the same date at Crater Lake.
  20. The leach field near Rim Village was located near the upper end of the Dutton Creek Trail. It was superseded by a sewer line that connected the cafeteria with lagoons in Munson Valley beginning in 1991.
  21. The Superintendent’s Residence. Researchers have stayed there on a periodic basis During the summer season.
  22. This research grant eventually resulted in “Whitehorse Pond Limnological and Vascular Plant Study,” by Salinas, Robert Truitt, and David J. Hartesveldt. The Study was completed in 1993.
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