Crater Lake Rainbows – Dan Mackay

Story submitted by Dan Mackay, 2025-3-17

Dan (left) and Larry Mackay feeding golden-mantled ground  squirrels.

Crater Lake Rainbows

Crater Lake National Park has been a favorite place of mine since childhood. In the family album there are pictures of me at a about 2 years of age, feeding the ground squirrels on the rim near the lodge (in those days it was still politically OK. Now it is a $100 fine). My family came from Southern California to Ashland in 1940 and visiting relatives found excursions to Oregon a favorite vacation trip. Crater Lake was high on the list of places we would take them.

Our family made a winter trip there in 1949 to see the lake completely frozen over and with a couple of feet of snow on the surface as well. Something that hasn’t happened since.

 

Growing up in Ashland in the 1950’s I had always wanted to go fishing in Crater Lake. As a kid we camped and fished a lot. My father was a very good lake fisherman but only if he could drive to the lake. I only know of one lake he hiked in to and that was because the last half-mile of the road in to Four-Mile lake was still blocked by winter snow. They skidded his light weight boat in the last half-mile.

When about age 10 in 1949 I was ears to a discussion between dad and his good friend, Harold “Red” Thomas, the Ashland USFS District Ranger, regarding Crater Lake access. Some of dad’s friends thought it would be highly desirable for a tunnel to be bored through the rim of the lake just above the water level and a boat ramp constructed. Folks could then back their boat trailers through the opening and be free to fish the wonderful and unused waters. The flames fanning this discussion were kindled by non-other than the Assistant Park Superintendent Thomas Parker. In the pre-World War II days they were anxious to improve the tourist count.

This, from the files of the Crater Lake Institute, February 11, 1941:

“Assistant Superintendent, Thomas Parker, in a memorandum to Park Superintendent Leavitt, writes that “no national park can hope to come into its own if operated only on a short seasonal basis….A safe and comfortable means of reaching the lake shore should be provided…I do believe that hiking, horseback riding, boating, fishing, campfires…are all compatible with each other. With this thought in mind, I see the urgent need for a tunnel, or elevator, to the lake shore, and the development of a fine winter sports area, and program…if a tunnel for vehicles was constructed from near headquarters, the entrance portal would be close to the (new) campground, with adequate space for parking of cars…When one reaches the park…and is given the choice of a bleak, cold windy camp ground, or a drafty room in a ramshackle lodge at prices that would put the blush of shame on the operator of a clip joint,…we cannot expect them to tarry long in our midst or praise us for our thoughtfulness towards our guests.”

 

What we were witnessing here was the evolving NPS internal struggle between the “utilitarian conservation” and the “preservation” forces.

I don’t recall Harold’s comments but dad came away convinced that it ought to be done. And that would have been the only way we would have fished it.

 

Fast forward to the summer of 1958. I came home on leave from the Navy. Having been away for over a year I was anxious to do some fishing and trade the grungy southern California air in my lungs for some pure high Cascades variety.

I had learned that one could rent a ten-foot long rowboat at the foot of the trail to the lake. At that time the only trail to the water was located just below Crater Lake Lodge. Being young and in good shape I didn’t mind the hike.

I called up a high school friend I had dated off and on, Francine Robertson, and she was home and up for the trip. I talked my dad out of his second car for the day and found my old stash of spinning gear.

Francine’s dad was a transplanted Texan and quite skeptical that this sailor wanted to just take his only daughter fishing. He was a wonderful man who taught Physical Education in the Ashland schools and also loved to fish. But he really didn’t trust me. He was well versed about young bucks my age. However, he allowed as how Francine could go. She was after all a Senior in high school. But he had to know what time I would have her back. I might have said “by dark”.

We had an early start and it was a pretty mid-July morning when we arrived at the lodge. There had been a brief shower the previous evening and the sun reflected off droplets hanging on the fir trees. The air was cool but there was promise that it would warm nicely as the day progressed. There were still plenty of snow drifts along the shore and under the trees but the ground was mostly bare.

We made our arrangements for a boat at the lodge, ten dollars for the day, grabbed my old scout backpack with the fishing gear, lunch and windbreakers, then started down the trail. It was steep, rock strewn and dusty. Word was that it was hard to maintain and no doubt figured in to it’s relocation in 1960 to Cleetwood Cove. On arriving at the shore we had our choice of about four boats. All older grey painted flat bottom wood with shallow draft. They had to be bailed out from yesterday’s rain and were just pulled up on a narrow beach. No one was in attendance. No one else was there

A very old ten foot wood row boat on Crater Lake is a small boat on a very big pond. With two people aboard the normally low gunwales only sported about six inches of freeboard. Having one out in rough water could be dicey. We were provided WWII vintage Kapok life vests, which made OK seat cushions but they were damp and not something we were ready to slip in to short of a pending dunking. The oars were suitable but free in the locks and took a bit of practice to make steady headway, even for a sailor. Fortunately, the water was calm, being barely rippled by the summer breeze. The lake surface, being on average a thousand foot below the rim of the caldera, gets some protection from stronger winds….usually. There are stories of people caught out on the lake in sudden thunderstorms that created seven foot white caps.

The first close impression of the water came as we hiked down the trail. Looking below us in to deeper water it was incredibly blue, bluer than Francine’s eyes almost.

Rigging the spinning rods with red, white and silver weighted wobblers on the end of 4 pound test monofilament line, we rowed along the shore in the direction of Wizard Island tossing and retrieving the lures. Francine was not practiced in this art but quickly caught on and was soon rewarded with a heavy strike from a fat 18” Rainbow Trout. I had been watching her cast and saw the fast moving dark shadow streak after the splash as the lure hit the water near the shore. The initial disturbance of the water by the lure had not subsided when the trout exploded through the surface and danced about ten feet along the surface on it’s tail trying to shake free.

 

Because we were in very deep water it was easy to let the fish have line and gradually work it up to the boat. After a couple of aerial displays the fish sounded and we could see it fighting clearly fifty feet below. In a few minutes she had worked it up near the surface when I realized one small item I had neglected to bring was a net! No matter. She played the fish out and when it was along side we carefully balanced the boat so I could reach over with two hands and sweep it over the gunwale, letting it flop wildly in the bottom of the boat. This fish had spunk to spare and in reaching over the side I realized it had grown up in very cold, and very clear, water.

 

That fish now on the stringer, which I did remember to bring, was our first score. At least we weren’t going to be skunked.

 

We rowed along the shore another 100 yards or so and I spotted a fish’s shadow moving along the bank about 75 feet away. Reaching way back I hefted my Daredevil on a long arc, dropping it about 10 feet ahead of the shadow. Again there was the instant strike as the 17” Rainbow hit and then made for deep water. While I was giving some line, the fish suddenly charged back to the surface slacking the line and threatened to toss the lure back at me. Getting control again and lightening the drag, I gave it room to run and played it slowly up to the boat. During the entire time every move the fish made was easily observed, which added immensely to the fun.

This time it was Francine’s turn to get the fish aboard which she did, repeating the “two hand heave” technique flawlessly.

Since the day was still young, and so were we, it was decided to row out to Wizard Island to see what it had to offer. I was attracted to the relatively shallow water on the west side and was pleased to see the shadows of Trout working the mossy edges of the smaller islands. Here we could easily see the rocky bottom but it was as though we were floating on a pane of glass. The depth of the water under us was difficult to gauge.

We repeated the exercise with the fish six more times and didn’t lose a single one. I had five and Francine three very fine Rainbows, all between 17 and 21 inches, each one full of fight and in beautiful shape. These were the progeny of fish last stocked about 1940. Apparently, there was sufficient food in the lake to keep them in good shape. None of our catch had big heads and skinny bodies.

We thoroughly enjoyed the solitude of the lake with only the sound of the squeaking oarlocks and the Clark’s Nutcrackers breaking the silence. Once in a while a tourist voice would drift down but there were no other boaters the entire day.

We had about all the fish we deserved, her three and my five, and now spent some time exploring and having lunch. Finding a level place on Wizard Island to spread a picnic is nigh on impossible. It is nearly a solid boulder field near the water’s edge. The Golden Mantle squirrels and Clark’s Nutcrackers were intent on mooching any lunch we might consider extra or momentarily turned our backs on. I always wondered how the squirrels got on the island. Perhaps they came on winter snow bridges from the shore.

 

A bit later we were floating about one hundred feet off the end of the island dock where the launch boats were kept. The sun was hot and there was very little breeze. I had taken off my shirt and was only in my hiking shorts and tennis shoes. The water felt a nice temperature when I held my hand in it over the side of the boat. I thought it would be cooling to slip off the stern of the boat and swim over to the dock.

What I didn’t realize until too late was that the warm water was only about a six inches deep layer sitting on 1,900 feet of water not exceeding forty five degrees. Cooling wasn’t the word for it. My breath was sucked away and I made my fastest crawl stroke ever to the end of the dock. Hypothermia could not have been far away. I never came as close to walking on water before or since.

The shadows lengthened and we needed to be back to the landing by 4 P.M. according to the boat rental rules. Dragging our hefty catch on a stringer at the back of the boat we headed in. At the beach there was a convenient snow bank and we packed our fish in snow in the backpack and began the hike out. It was not an altogether comfortable trip as it was quite warm. I was hot and sweating but had ice water running down my back and legs from the melting snow seeping through the old pack.

The hike out took longer than the hike down and what with getting the car loaded, the fish cleaned and some supper we were way after dark getting back to Francine’s home in Ashland. Before going in the house we put the fish back on the stringer. We opened the door and she walked in holding one end of the stringer while I brought up the rear. Her quite perturbed Texan dad’s eyes fairly popped. “By Golly you really did go fishing!” he said. I think I could have taken Francine out anywhere after that. But her dad made me promise that if I took her fishing again he would get to go along.

The hole through the rim never was built and the rowboats went away in 1975. We were to get one more trip in 1959 but did not realize then that it soon could never be repeated. The launch rides of today are a bland experience compared with being in the solitude on the water in yesteryear’s ten-foot rowboats. Bank fishing, even off Wizard Island, cannot hold a candle to the experience of doing it from a small boat.

Francine, (of the incredible Crater Lake blue eyes), and I would have life conspire against us developing a relationship. But we remained good friends for many years.

The National Park Service in their “preservation” wisdom has worked hard to keep the lake as pristine as possible. There must have been some interesting discussions between Thomas Parker and his boss. The NPS now worries more about the public loving the park to death than attracting more visitors.  I know today, they wish the fish would disappear and I can fairly see them blanch at the prospect of boring a hole through the rim.

The “preservationist” group prevailed in the management of the parks. One wonders if the future experience will be relegated to a complete “look but don’t touch” approach. Perhaps it is all for the best and perhaps it is better to not try to repeat some of life’s great experiences. This certainly was one for me. And try as I might over the years getting back to mountain top experiences has usually left me somewhere on the lower slopes.

 

But maybe there is a way to satisfy some of the “utilitarian conservation” advocates?

Fast forward again to the Spring of 2015 and our trip to the Vermillion Cliffs National Monument in Utah. Some will recognize that area as the wilderness where the beautiful “Wave” sandstone formations are. In order to maintain the wilderness experience the Bureau of Land Management restricts visitors by means of a lottery system for permits to go in to the area. There are only 20 permits each day which, given the popularity of the site, are highly coveted. Ten are selected in advance on line and ten are selected daily from those gathered at the nearby BLM Visitor Center in Kanab, UT (We tried the local lottery for two days mid-week in early March and had to compete with 120 other hopefuls. The odds were against us and we were not successful).

However, it occurred to me that Crater Lake might use a similar system providing, say ten small rowboats per day to such a scheme. From my earlier experience they are barely visible to visitors on the rim and would at least allow a few people each season to have a rare experience.  Today boats can be outfitted with GPS trackers and radios which would help greatly with administration.

To protect the lake so all one can ever do is look at it seems a shame. I can’t say I agree with the plan to bore a hole in the wall. But I believe there can be a better balance.

Dan Mackay

 

Notes and pictures

 As I recall neither of us had a camera on this outing. Mine was a clunky old Brownie Reflex which would have been excess baggage. So I have hunted for similar pictures from other sources to flesh out the story.

This is off a postcard with an estimated date of 1910-1930’s. This boat is about a 12-14 foot and the ones we used were only 10 feet long. This boat is equipped with two sets of oars while the 10’s only had a single set. Still, it gives the flavor of the experience and was likely taken near the shore beneath the lodge.

Below are two old photos, again likely from the 1930’s, of the boat landing below the lodge. In the bottom photo the small boats furthest up the shore were likely the same available to us on our outing.

Below is a picture of the Wall Trail about 1945, the same year of the following one. It took nearly constant maintenance to keep it open.

Bonus photo: Crater Wall Trail headed below the Rim Village Cafeteria Cafe and was used from about 1928 to 1959; looking upgrade

Old photos courtesy of the Crater Lake Institute

 

Digging out the Wall Trail from the Lodge to the lake. The trail was on a north facing slope and the accumulated snow did not get enough sun on it to melt until late in the season. The trail was also rough and beset with rockfalls. When the present Cleetwood Cove trail was built about 1959 it was located on a south facing slope and was built to accommodate small powered tractors for hauling materials in and out.

Following is additional information on park superintendent Leavitt.

Ernest P. Leavitt

From August 1, 1937 to March 14, 1952, Ernest P. Leavitt served as park superintendent, the longest tenure of any person in that position. Born in San Francisco, California, in 1885 he worked for the Southern Pacific Railroad from 1907 to 1910. In the latter year he began his Park Service career as a clerk at Yosemite National Park, later becoming an administrative assistant to the superintendent and ultimately assistant superintendent from 1918 to 1930.

Thereafter, he served in successive superintendencies at Hawaii Volcanoes National Park (1931-33), Mesa Verde National Park (1933-35), and Lassen Volcanic National Park (1935-37). While at Lassen a gas explosion destroyed the superintendent’s residence, severely injuring Leavitt and killing his wife. After his recovery Leavitt was transferred to Crater Lake. He retired from the Park Service in 1952 and Leavitt lived in the Medford area until his death in 1961. [Administrative History of Crater Lake NP]

 

leavitt-cronch-fish
1940, Superintendent Ernest P. Leavitt (left) and Chief Ranger Carlisle Crouch (right) pose with fish caught in Crater Lake. Photo courtesy National Park Service.

Another boat landing picture:

Revised 3/2025

Dan Mackay

Ashland OR 97520

danmk@charter.net

Early Stories from Ranger Lloyd Smith

Back in 1959-60 a national park photographer came to Crater Lake to take photos. They put out a folder the next year about working in the national parks. I was featured on the cover working with two stone masons rebuilding the rock wall at North Junction. Can you imagine, no shirt…no hardhat and I was featured…so unsafe. That is me on the left at age 19.

Rangering in the ’80s at Crater Lake National Park

Park Rangers do many things at their jobs, including helping people in distress. Crater Lake is a very long way from normal medical service, so when something happens, a  heart attach from the high altitude at the Rim or falling off a bicycle, these first-line of safety are the boys in green! Thanks to Lloyd and Larry Smith for these photos.

Car Crashes Lloyd Smith 7
Car Crashes Lloyd Smith 4
Car Crashes Lloyd Smith 3
Lloyd Smith’s ranger vehicle
Lloyd Smith

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The Eidson Family Goes to Crater Lake – Twice

Crater Lake Institute receives all sorts of memorabilia from family visits or the CCC units that worked there. This one is especially nice for the quality of the surviving scrapbooks of two visits, one in 1958 and the second in 1964. The bear poster was a handout at the park gate.

Earl and Alice Eidson

This from their daughter: Their names were Earl and Alice (Robin) Eidson. They met at Fresno State College, where Earl was attending on the GI Bill after WWII – he was in the 86th Infantry Division, active in both theatres.  She was born in Great Falls, Montana but the family moved when her father got a position as a flight instructor in Tulare, CA. They were married after my mom finished college in 1951 in Fresno, and they moved to Salinas, CA where Dad first taught math and history at junior high, then math at high school.

He stayed in the reserves as a sergeant major until Fort Ord retired his unit, which I mention only because I’m sure you can imagine what it was like to get in trouble with your father the retired Sergeant Major/math teacher: the whole neighborhood knew. The first time they went to Crater Lake – the 1953 trip – was part of a trip that took them to Victoria, Canada and then heading home. It was Crater Lake, Olympia, Salem, and Columbia River Gorge, Vancouver and Victoria.

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Bevan-gate-pass
Crater Lake Informational Brochure 1952-1

[Crater Lake Institute has this 1952 edition in their collection. See it here]

My dad’s mom was a native Californian, and so he had some 24 great aunts and uncles in California. My great grandfather was a cattle rancher and inspector who, among other things, worked on the hoof and mouth eradication in 1929 in Yosemite/Tulare; one of my great uncles was a ranger at Kings Canyon, and I have three cousins who were born in Yosemite Valley.

If Dad’s family was thinking about taking a drive, there was always a relative to visit (Winters, Manteca, Alpaugh, Gridley, Firebaugh, Button Willow…), trees in bloom somewhere, or a birthday to celebrate – and I’m so fortunate that there was also a photo or two to take. It was my dad’s father who had the photography bug – and passed it on all over the family. I grew up playing with empty film canisters and reels.

The 1963 trip [the second trip] was to visit my mom’s relatives in Great Falls, Montana; they also visited the Great Salt Lake, Sale Lake City, Las Vegas, Carson City, & Helena.

Here’s the park permit from 1963  and a photo of  my dad, my brother and me at the park then. I would have been three, my brother seven.


Family shot on the Rim. The author peaks at the lake in front of dad.

Crater Lake Institute was happy to get this personal view of the park. While we focus on the inner workings, staff and history of Crater Lake, this other side is just as important. Thanks for sharing, Jimmy Rae.

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Our Website Guy Goes Backpacking

I freely admit it, I can’t make big mileages hiking if I stop to do these paintings. I’m fast, but not THAT fast, so, I’ve learned to shorten my goals, keep it realistic – and enjoy myself. For this, I get art to take home, my old body thanks me for slowing down, and by taking care I get to come back again and again to do this. And one more perk that is the difference between hiking and making art. I get to actually LOOK at the landscape, see how it’s built and has evolved. I see and understand how the flowers grow beside that dainty little brook where it spills out of the lake. Or how the trail crews have built a little path of rocks hauled over from a scree pile possibly 50 years ago. Putting in mileage sure doesn’t get you this close connection – but making trail art does.

Fleabane-beside-the-creek

These paintings represent places that moved me enough to stop and draw. On this trip, fourth of the season, I didn’t take my paints, but instead just a pencil, long point pencil sharpener and some water color paper. The color was added back in my studio, and I loved reliving the trip in this way. It took less art-making time on the trail, yet provided a ‘second adventure’ for me here at home reliving the same places again. I recommend it, really!

Sunset-trail-toward-the-peak

In this painting, I liked the way the soft light from distant fires softened up the sky, made companion colors in the willows fit perfectly as they yellowed for fall. The fleabane flowers beside the creek were about spent, with only a few yellow and white petals remaining – but it was a beautiful little place with water gurgling by. Willows, their leaves chomped on here and there by the black-tailed deer, were sporting galls and little caterpillar cocoons awaiting first freeze so they could spend their winter safe under snow on the ground.  The place looked felt very soft and settled. Both these paintings were created at places where I was also tired of walking, so it was good timing to take time, calm down, make some art.

As I hiked along and came into a big meadow, the vertical peaks of the Olympics really contrasted my view. Flat and stable, then vertical and jagged, rising fast and steep. That’s what these Olympic Mountains are, really steep. The Dungeness River starts up here and drops 7600 feet in only 28 miles to the Pacific Ocean, one of the steepest watersheds in the country. Ah, but those first dozen miles at the top, they’re just pure magic. One of the side secondary rivers begins here in this valley, surrounded by snowy peaks and a chain of lakes. Not a single lowland trail comes here, they’re all high subalpine or high-elevation trails that drop down into this magic place, giving it a Shangri-La feeling bounded by barriers on all sides.

Waytrail down into the valley below. A real knee killer.

 

Steep slopes and narrow valleys – Olympic National Park

 

Mountain-Gentian

Gentian : gen shen Gentians are fall-blooming plants of subalpine wet meadows. They’re one of my favorite flowers because they start blooming as summer is fading, being downright gutsy about their timing. They grow in clusters from a solitary root, and are at first tightly zipped up, a dark midnight blue that is truly rare in color. I don’t know another alpine flower with this amazingly vibrant blue. As they open, the insides begin to show lighter shades of cobalt, and again this is color not often seen in the wild, anywhere. They’re spectacular, to say the least I can about a plant that’s learned to flower just before first frost. What timing!

Orange Mountain-dandelion

On the other side of the color spectrum, a nose-up look at these plants that were upslope and out in the open from the gentians showed an orange mixed with white, just a tad of white to tone it down. And a little bee getting a meal. This was an upclose and personal painting – the flowers are only two inches wide, max. Orange mountain-dandelion has a hyphen, meaning it’s not a real dandelion, but one that looks similar to it’s backyard relatives. I found these in a much drier place than the gentian but still beside the trail. Both give great color to a drying meadow in late August.

My Six Moon Designs Lunar Duo was a bit too spacious for just me, but I luxuriously lounged in it, spread my stuff all over the place like I lived there. I guess I did. It’s an amazingly big tent for its 45 ounces of weight. This tent, and the other ultralight gear is what’s getting me into these places these days, and allowing me to do it in comfort.

At this campsite, an outcropping of boulders provided some really good reflections in the little lake, and so a painting was needed. Oh, I could have just turned the paper upside down and drawn it a second time, but that’s cheating, and not very accurate. Beside me while I drew, this Olympic chipmunk joined me. The Olympic Peninsula has several endemic mammals that live only here. This is one, and possibly my favorite. It’s small, even looks small with its short nose. This moment, with the chippy and me, my pencil and paper, are what makes my hiking complete – close connections with nature that will remain in my mind throughout the winter.

Olympic Chipmunk, only found in these mountains.

Thanks for reading this week. You can sign up for emails for these posts on my website at larryeifert.com.

 

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More Bears from Lloyd Smith

Crater Lake Bears by Lloyd Smith

Very few people have witnessed this. When Larry [Smith] and I first started working at Crater Lake in 1959 the park dug garbage pits and dumped the park’s garbage into the pits and burned it each day. Sometimes our garbage people would wait until the end of the day to burn to be nice to the bears. The garbage from the lodge and cafeteria were rich in dumped food.

The bears turned into entitled pigs and would all descend into the pits near headquarters and rummage through the burning garbage.We used to go down after work and watch the bears and shoot photos. When friends visited we would take them to the pits. The first photo is of me trying to “feed” the bear. We were young and not afraid. The bears had a regular run; they would start in the Mazama Campground then stop by the burning garbage and then head up to the Rim and scavenger the food in the Rim Campground. At one time I counted 21 bears around the garbage pit and in the trees. The park knew they had a problem. 

They put out bear warning pamphlets to put your food away in the campground. They made the bear-proof garbage cans. They closed the Rim Campground. Then they decided to close the pits and trucked the garbage out of the park.

Now you had druggie type/entitled bears used to free food…much better than leaves and berries. We had some people hurt. I have done first aid on bear injuries. One night a camper asked me if I could get a bear out his van that was going through his food boxes. I have been chased by a bear. Slowly the park trapped the bears and moved them outside the park. Some were tranquilized and moved. Some were shot…no other choice. The mothers had trained their kids to beg. We had them storming to the cabins looking for food.

Helen even chased one out of our cabin entrance with a broom. One day Helen was in our cabin and Kenneth was playing in the sandbox they had in the area for kids. Helen looked out and saw a bear walk between our cabin and Kenneth. Helen remained calm and the bear kept on walking. The bear was more interested in food rather than kids.

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Lloyd’s Bears

In the good ole days at Crater Lake when rangers had the morning patrol shift one of my first jobs was to cruise the campgrounds and take bear incident reports…report any damage and interview the campers from the night before. Most of the time the damage was because the camper did not put their food away. One morning a camper flagged me down and said a bear had taken their food. It was the same story and I replied, “You should have put your food away”. He replied, “We were eating it”. It seems they had dinner set up on the table and the bear came into their camp and growled…they jumped up..the bear helped herself to the food they had set out. Here are some photos of some of the damage I recorded and other photos of the bears at “work” . I have chased bears out of the back of vans….then she chased me…that is another story. I remember Helen even chasing a bear out of our cabin with a broom. Kenneth and Keith are in one photo inspecting the cabin damage.

[most of these photos are Ranger Lloyd Smith. The black and whites are from the CLI photo collection.]

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Bug in the Tree

1975 a Volkswagen bug is driven off the road and into the canyon one mile below Rim Village. The car rolled several times and the driver was thrown from the car. The driver, who had been drinking, is unhurt, but the car is a total loss. 

Car Crashes Lloyd Smith 7

A soldier, who was on leave, had just purchased the car and was not yet covered by insurance, Lloyd Smith, the investigating ranger wrote in 2017: “One thing about being a ranger with a camera you get to record some pretty interesting stuff. If I remember this story correctly the young man had just gotten out of the Army and he bought this Volkswagen for $900. He came to Crater Lake and spent the evening drinking on the Rim at the bar. He tried to drive down the curves below the Rim and drove off the road. It rolled several times and he was thrown out of the passenger’s window when it hit the trees. We found him below his vehicle. We hauled him up the slope and took him to the hospital . . . the verdict . . . all ok. . just drunk. We brought him back to HQ and put him to bed to sleep it off. He did not have insurance on the car. The next day my twin brother, Larry, and I went back to investigate it more and to clean up. We found some brick-like objects wrapped in aluminum foil. Our first thought was drugs. Oh, oh. But they turned out to be fruit cake.” 

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Horse Rangers at Crater Lake

Ranger Marion Jack leased the horses to the park. He must have done this for 15-20 years though the 1970s and 80s. The horses were kept at the park during the summer at the corral in Sleepy Hollow. They wintered in the Medford area. We would ride the horses from the barn to the Rim each morning they were on duty on the old CCC Trail behind Headquarters. It was probably one of the best duties in the park to be a mounted ranger.

People would come from all over to pet and to look at the horses. They would ask, “How do I get a job like this”? I truly felt special, I was a lucky guy. Everybody wanted my job. The kids’ eyes would just light up and run over when they saw the horses.

Duke and Larry at the drinking fountain

Lloyd with his son, Keith.

The horses were used mainly on the Rim as PR and to be able to observe the park visitors. The big problem was we had to clean up after the horses. So, in uniform, with a shovel and plastic bag, we would start shoveling. We had a special area near the cafeteria where we stashed the bag and the shovel. The horses were used by the interpretative staff for some great living history programs, like the first explorers to find the lake, as in John Wesley Hillman. The horses were used to patrol the boundary areas during hunting season. The horses also were used for search and rescue.

Lloyd Smith’s ranger vehicle

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