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2003
July 23 2003 Boats land in Crater Lake: new boats to start service on Sunday Herald and News Klamath Falls, Oregon By LEE JUILLERAT (please refer to1968 and 1972 entries)
Goodbye Ralph Peyton, Glen Happel, Rudy Wilson and Paul Herron.
Hello Klamath, Umpqua and Rogue.
Four 1960s-era tour boats named after people who figured prominently in the history of concession operations at Crater Lake National Park were flown out of the lake Tuesday and replaced by a trio of new-generation vessels named for Southern Oregon rivers.
The new boats will begin serving visitors Sunday, following four days of training and familiarization outings by park rangers and staff from Xanterra Parks & Resorts, the concession company that’s footing the $700,000 bill for the three boats.
Hundreds of park visitors lined vantage points around Rim Drive as the 12,000-pound custom-made boats, tethered on a 200-foot long lease, were individually flown in and out by a Boeing 234 Chinook helicopter. Shortly after 10 a.m., following a two-hour delay for safety reasons, the Umpqua was flown to the lake by copter pilot Dave Stroup.
The Umpqua and its two look-alike boats were airlifted from trailers parked at the Pumice Desert staging area to the lake. After crossing over the rim near the North Entrance viewpoint, the copter and its load dropped into the caldera near the Devil’s Backbone. The boats were placed on the lake at Governors Bay, just in front of the Wizard Island boat docks.
Tom McDonough, who has worked as a seasonal park ranger for 35 years, says the new boats will be environmentally friendlier and believes they will help provide lake visitors with a greater appreciation for the water-filled caldera. “It’s a great place to tell about the birth and death of a mountain,” said McDonough of the lake tours, which will be offered seven times daily through early September. “It’s like a history book – you’ve got the story laid out right before you. Those lava flows on the inner caldera speak of a very different world. It’s like a time capsule, looking at those high rock walls.”
Dominie Lenz, general manager of Xanterra’s park operations, believes visitors will appreciate the improvements in the new boats, which were intentionally designed to look like the historic boats.
“It is our goal to provide our visitors with a fabulous view of the lake, knowing they are doing it safely while preserving the environment,” Lenz said.
The three new fiberglass boats will replace four wooden boats built in the 1960s and ’70s. The old boats were replaced because they had become less mechanically reliable. The new boats have muffled engines to minimize engine noise; speaker systems that will allow passengers to better hear interpretive talks by park rangers, and several environmental features, such as sensors that contain fuel and other pollutants.
Custom-built for Xanterra by Modutech Marine of Tacoma, Wash., the new fleet also features built-in buoyancy chambers that will prevent vessels from sinking, even if swamped. The hulls, seven to 10 layers of fiberglass up to an inch thick, will be less prone to leaks and easier to repair than wooden hulls.
The engines are sealed in compartments so water cannot reach them and mix with fuel or oil. ”Smart” bilge pumps and filters will prevent petroleum from being ejected into the lake.
Each boat is powered by a 315-horsepower, 5.7-liter Vortec engine built by Marine Power. The engines use electronic fuel injection.
“It was a very good and safe decision to get these boats,” said park official Mike Justin.
Tourist boats have taken visitors on Crater Lake since 1907. The earliest known boat trip on the lake happened in the late 1870s when Jim Sutton, a mayor of Jacksonville, led a group that paddled a canvas boat to Wizard Island. Other early trips were led by William Steel in the 1880s.
Two of the four boats flown out Tuesday – the Paul Herron and Rudy Wilson – were built on Wizard Island. The Ralph Peyton and James Griffin, which was renamed the Glen Happel in the late 1980s, were built in Portland and, following champagne christenings, flown from the rim to the lake in July 1972. At the time, the total cost for building each of the two boats was $30,000.
Herron was a boat operator for 27 years, and Wilson designed the boats and managed the boat operation for more than 15 years. Peyton was president of Crater Lake Lodge, a former park concessionaire, for nearly 20 years. Griffin was co-lodge president for 14 years until being bought out by Peyton. Happel was the concession’s long-time operations chief who later became its manager.
July 27 2003 New Crater Lake boats were scheduled to begin running after three days of training and Shake down cruises, but mechanical problems delayed lake tours for nearly two weeks.
A BRIEF HISTORY OF CRATER LAKE LAUNCHES by Dan Pence
RiversWest, April 2004
Crater Lake, the deepest and most pristine lake in the U.S., is a bright blue jewel set on the spine of the Oregon Cascades. The ultra clear water fills the hollow shell of former Mt. Mazama, one of the tallest Cascade peaks until it blew it’s top about seven thousand years ago in a cataclysmic eruption. The six thousand foot plus elevation Crater Lake has been host to fascinating boat tours since 1921, providing a significant source of income for the park concession.
The Launch Builders Bus mechanic Paul Herron began working at Crater Lake Park in 1922. Ten years later he began to care for the hodgepodge collection of Crater Lake tour boats. After piloting, maintaining and managing the tour boats for 27 years, he suffered a heart attack in 1959 and grudgingly retired. In the mid-sixties Rudy Wilson, a boat builder with 25 years experience, ran the tour boat operation and Paul Herron was back as a part-time consultant. 1966 was the year Paul and Rudy were sick of patching up the odd collection of four little old tour boats the park had haphazardly collected over the years. They came up with an ambitious plan to create a boat building operation on Wizard Island and build four 60-passenger boats. The materials, hardware, engines and tools were delivered by one of the then new Sikorsky Sky Crane helicopters. (Actually it was more like a little Bell Helicopter. The Sky Crane was used four years later for the next two boats.)
The Launch Design The boats would be 39’ long, 11’6” wide, with 2’8” of draft, the hulls based on a 1936 William Atkin — a highly noted east coast marine architect — cabin cruiser design. These would weigh 12,000 lbs, carry 60 passengers and run at 17-20 knots with single big 280 horsepower gas engines. Built as open launches so a roof or windshield wouldn’t obstruct the view of the spectacular surroundings, the huge mahogany runabouts would be built with highest quality materials and workmanship. Passenger seating consisted of 16 blue and white wooden benches separated by an aisle, school bus fashion, for elegant simplicity. The pilot station up forward was a big stainless steering wheel and a couple gauges. Beside the pilot could stand, facing the visitors, a park naturalist providing commentary via a P.A. system.
Building the Lake Launches The launching of the Paul Herron, “brought to a close the boat building project of Rudy H. Wilson who assembled the boat from his own plans at the boathouse on Wizard Island beginning two summers ago.” (Klamath Falls Herald and News, July 7th, 1968). The National Park Service approved the boat design later that summer (in 2000 the boats received Coast Guard Certification). After the christening Rudy got to work on the second boat, pre-cutting many of the parts from patterns of the first. The Rudy Wilson, also assembled on Wizard Island was launched in August 28, 1971. These first boats cost $20,000 apiece. To save time the bare hulls of the remaining two boats, the Ralph Peyton (named for the former Crater Lake Lodge Company President) and Jim Griffen (the Lodge Company president at the time) were built at Rudy Wilson’s new boat works near the Portland Yacht Club. The finished hulls were trucked to the rim, and then carried by helicopter down to Wizard Island. Minus the engines, seats, drive shaft and propeller the hulls were still near the 6,500 lb. payload limit of the logging helicopter in the thin mountain air. In 1983, despite superstition, the Jim Griffen was renamed the Glen Happel, after the new Crater Lake Lodge President.
Service of the Lake Launches “They were our bread and butter,” related former Crater Lake Lodge president Dick Gordon. Each boat typically ran three trips per day all summer long. The tour boat fares were $12.50 for adults, $7.00 for kids. The lodge company sold between 20,000 and 27,000 tickets every year in the late 1990’s. Over the years, perhaps a million people toured the Crater Lake in the four launches. Service on the lake was hard on the boats. Sudden williwaws and thunderstorms surprised the tour boat fleet many times each season. The recently christened Ralph Peyton broke its mooring line during an August of ‘72 snowstorm. The storm carried the empty launch across the lake and smashed it onto jagged rocks, tearing a 4’ hole in the bow. The inexperienced seasonal pilots bashed the boats, usually accidentally, into docks, moorings, boathouses and the rocky shores. In the mid-70’s Ralph Peyton’s son, Mike, was busted for water skiing across the lake behind one of the tour boats one evening. Denny Charlot of Tomahawk Island, did his best to keep the boats in good shape from 1983 until 2001.
In 2001, the new lodge concessionaire, Xanterra Corporation, decided the old launches should be replaced and ordered new fiberglass tour boats. The four retiring launches were air lifted out of the lake in the summer of 2003, overshadowed by the sleek modern — but distinctly less charming and beloved — replacements. The old lake launches were trucked to a boatyard near Newport, Oregon to await their fate.
Bringing the Launches to Portland In mid- March, 2004, RiversWest, a non-profit low-impact boating and boat building organization in Portland, who organizes The Portland Wooden Boat Show and has been providing a free demonstration ferry service, heard the launches were available and asked if they could be put to work in Portland for a permanent river ferry service. Xanterra happily agreed to donate the fleet to RiversWest rather than see them destroyed. The best three of the boats are being prepped for hauling to a Portland City yard on the Eastbank of the Willamette River at the foot of SE Salmon St. The 4th boat, the Glen Happel, was found to be unneeded and in poor condition. It will be salvaged for spare parts and useful pieces. This may validate the superstitious about renaming boats.
With the boats fitted with roofs to hold off Portland’s winter drizzle and hot summer sun, slowed down to a more appropriate and efficient speed, and innovatively re-powered to protect the river’s water, people should be able to shuttle between OMSI, the Maritime Museum, shopping districts and residential areas, the Convention Center, Rose Quarter and historic Oaks Amusement park, all within a 5 mile stretch of river. Service is planned to begin in the spring of 2005.
August 3 2003 Park proposes the rebuilding of 7.7 miles of the West Entrance road from the West Park boundary to Mazama Campground. This section of the road is in fair to poor condition with large sections of frost heaves, potholes, crumbling edges, and poor drainage. This action is proposed to improve visitor and employee safety by digging out and repairing distressed areas, restoring roadside ditching, and improving two switchback curves.
Summer 2003 First time for two generations of rangers to work at Crater Lake during the same season.
Tom McDonough – interpretation for 35 seasons. Son – Stephen McDonough – Law Enforcement Ranger
Carl Jones – Patrol and backcountry Laura Jones – Fee collection – both from Bakersfield
August 26 2003 H and News – A volcano came alive yesterday, at least in the minds of those listening to a volcanologist who has spent more than 20 years studying the geology of Crater Lake. Mount Mazama, the mountain that rose about 12,000 feet above sea level before a series of climactic eruptions 7,700 years ago created the caldera known as Crater Lake, was resurrected by Charles “Charlie” Bacon, a U.S. Geologic Survey volcanologist.
Bacon, who rewrote the geological textbooks on Crater Lake, guided visitors through the mountain’s and lake’s history during a tour around Crater Lake National Park’s Rim Drive. The tour came as a prelude to ceremonies hosted by the Crater Lake Institute to honor Bacon with its Centennial Award for Excellence in Scientific Research.
A significant amount of Bacon’s work and research included collecting rock samples from the steep, unstable caldera walls. Bacon’s park studies were especially intense during the 1980s, when he explored, sampled and reinterpreted earlier work by J.S. Diller in 1902 and Howell Williams in the 1930s and ’40s.
In outlining the region’s geologic history, he said the Phantom Ship, a football-field-length rocky island in the southeast corner of the lake, was created about 400,000 years ago — “That’s the guts of the oldest part of the volcano.”
September 18 2003 Mini PCs study Crater Lake clarity
When Crater Lake’s fabled clarity was questioned in the early 1980s by lake researcher, Dr. Doug Larson, Congress allocated money for a 10-year lake water-quality study. Twenty years later, the study continues as scientists collect water data each year.
Crater Lake National Park’s annual budget includes $280,000 for aquatic studies, not counting an estimated $120,000 in work provided by students doing post-graduate studies.
Last week, five researchers braved stormy weather and turbulent water to seed the lake with thermometers and miniature computers that will be retrieved in July.
Research efforts were comparatively primitive during the early 1980s. The first boats were pontoon vessels less capable of withstanding Crater Lake’s erratic, often ocean-like conditions.
Now researchers use the Neuston, a 30-foot boat named after organisms such as water striders that live on the surface of the water. It was ferried by helicopter to the lake in 1995 and is used throughout the summer and, occasionally, during winter as researchers study the lake’s clarity.
Twenty years of research have generated significant information.
“We have confirmed the obvious — it is extremely pure,” said Oregon State University oceanographer Robert Collier. “Previously, it was more of an aesthetic description. Now we have some basis to document it for the future. The lake is so clear that it’s extremely responsive to change.”
Last week, crews retrieved the sediment traps from their nearly 2,000-foot-long mooring line.
Collier and OSU oceanographer Chris Moser collected minuscule samplings of bacteria, debris and even bird fecal matter from the three traps, which for 20 years have been placed along the mooring line at depths of 656, 1,312 and 1,886 feet. The collected sediment will be centrifuged, freeze-dried, weighed and studied, especially for its composition of nitrogen and carbon. “It really does change from year to year,” Buktenica said.
September19 2003 GOLD BEACH, Ore. — Jack R. Dymond, an oceanographer who helped discover exotic life forms subsisting in the cold, sunless depths at the bottom of the sea, drowned while fishing. He was 64. The retired Oregon State University professor slipped on Sept. 19 in the Rogue River and was pulled under, said Robert Collier, an oceanographer at the university. In 1977, Dr. Dymond was a lead investigator on a research cruise at the Galapagos Rift west of Ecuador when he and other scientists spotted hydrothermal vents spewing warm, mineral-rich fluids from the sea floor. To the scientists’ amazement, they also found a community of tubeworms, clams, and other organisms living off the vents in the harsh, dark environment. It was the first and essentially only ecosystem discovered on Earth that did not rely on the sun for energy, spawning a new field of research, Collier said. Dr. Dymond traveled the world in his research, visiting Russia’s Lake Baikal, the Arabian Sea, and the equatorial Pacific. He also wrote nearly 100 scientific papers. He was the first to explore the bottom of Oregon’s Crater Lake, descending in a one-person submersible in 1988 and 1989. In a 1988 article for The Oregonian newspaper about the experience, Dr. Dymond wrote: “Amidst the topographic grandeur and shockingly blue waters, I began to sense why this site has had such spiritual significance to Native Americans. I felt attuned to the significance of life and the uniqueness of our planet.”
October 2003 Summary of the summer: 50,000 Oregon Crater Lake licenses have been sold. The most successful custom license plate in the state’s history.
$700,000 spent on three new lake launches.
It is estimated it will take $2 million to rehab the old Superintendent’s House and the Chief Naturalist’s House into a Science and Learning Center and dorm. Will be mostly paid for by license plate sales.
Plans call for: new Garfield water line
Rehab the old 1960s sewer lagoons
Rehab West Hwy 62 – $5.5 million
New Annie Spring Restaurant. To be built by the Park’s Concessionaire – $3.7 million
Rehab Rim Drive – $20 to $30 million
Rim Village is being considered for restoration, but the money that was designated has been shifted to redo the Liberty Bell building and for restoration of Independence Hall.
October 7 2003 Crater Lake range Ken Hay assists National Forest special agents and officers in the
investigation of illegal matsutake mushroom harvesting just outside the east park boundary. Four suspects are investigated. Evidence of widespread illegal matsutake harvesting has been found within the park this fall following weather conditions, which were favorable to their growth. Prices have dropped to only $4 per pound. The same mushroom sells for hundreds of dollars a pound in Japan.
Crater Lake National Park (OR)
Assist with Illegal Mushroom Harvesting, Drug Violations
Ranger Ken Hay assisted Winema National Forest special agents and officers in the investigation of illegal matsutake mushroom harvesting just outside the east park boundary on September 22nd. Four people were contacted at their campsite, which was camouflaged by brushing out vehicle tracks and using tree branches to conceal tents and vehicles. The investigation led to the discovery of approximately 100 pounds of matsutake mushrooms, methamphetamine, and numerous syringes. Forest Service agents arrested Noel Harshman, 47, for possession of methamphetamine, possession of drug paraphernalia, and commercial mushroom harvesting in a closed area. Also cited for commercial harvesting were David Staude, 63, and Shirley Eariley, 43. Evidence was also found of recent mushroom harvesting within the park, but it was insufficient to charge the suspects with violations of NPS regulations. Winema National Forest lands that are immediately east of the park boundary are closed to commercial harvesting of mushrooms, but areas just north of the park allow harvesting under a commercial permit system. Although the matsutake crop has been abundant and of high quality this fall, the market value is much lower than in past years, with pickers receiving only about $4 per pound for prime mushrooms. Mushrooms are purchased by roadside buyers and shipped to Japan, where they are a delicacy that sells for up to several hundred dollars per pound. Evidence of widespread illegal matsutake harvesting has been found within the park this fall following weather conditions which were favorable to their growth. An interagency investigation continues, involving the park, Winema National Forest and Oregon State Police. [Submitted by David Brennan, Chief Ranger]
Fiscal Year 2003 Park Budget – $4,027,000
Annual Visitation 528,782 visitors (Online says: 479,183)
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