During the last 3 summers we had a car cloutter named Mark Huddleston who worked Mazama Campground during full moon nights. He was a pro at breaking into cars and removing mainly wallets and cameras. We would stake out likely tent camper sites and try and catch him. One night Ranger Vic Affolter almost nabbed Huddleston but he broke away and ran down into Annie Cr. Canyon.. on another occasion Ranger Marion Jack noticed a wing window on a campers vehicle open, woke the person up, found that property had been taken, and sounded the alarm. Usually when we were visited by Huddleston, about 10 vehicles were broken into. We never found good footprints because he usually wore socks over his shoes. Rangers got good practice lifting prints off vehicles. We’d usually find people’s wallets discarded near their campsites. The money, credit cards, and traveler’s checks were normally removed. I’ve been keeping a file on Huddleston for the past 30 years. He has worked Yosemite, Crater Lake, Mount Rainier, and Great Smokey Mountain National Parks. At the Smokey’s he was arrested when he tried to run down a ranger with his motorcycle. The motorcycle became park property and became a Ranger patrol motorcycle! He was last arrested a few years ago in Eugene, OR and hopefully will stay in jail as a habitual offender.
The 1973 season was a nice long season that went into the winter. That summer I made my first arrest late one evening near the North Entrance Station. I arrested two men in a stolen vehicle. In those days the FBI helped out on cases. It was a fun night. I believe this summer we had a one way road north from Discovery Point to North Junction. This was real unpopular, especially with the concession residents. At night patrol rangers would sit at Discovery Point and write citations to people running against the one way road. You had to drive all the way around the lake to get to Rim Village if you came in from the north. Ranger Marion Jack used his horses for patrol in the park. We had some good back country trips that summer. Fall had good boundary patrols for poachers. Crater Lake has a long boundary to check. I spent many nights in the south entrance area. Winter was good skiing and snowmobiling. People were permitted to snowmobile around the lake. Snowmobiles were not real reliable and overheating and breakdowns were common. Sometimes we would hook up two snowmobiles in tandem and break trail. Often I would leave my apartment in Steel Circle and start to ski towards Sun Notch. My neighbors would follow in my ski tracks with their snow machines because it was easier to break trail. Superintendent Einar Johnson was a real avid snowmobiler and often I was invited to go around the lake with him. I met a man named John Day from the Gold Ray Buffalo Ranch. I believe he was in his 70’s. He would start from Rim Village and ski around the lake in a day. Two of his hired hands would break trail in from of him with snowmobiles. I figured that if a 70 year old guy could ski around the lake in a day, a Ranger should be able to do it. I’d leave just before sunrise and start counter-clockwise around the lake. I’d start with blue wax, then blue klister, then purple klister. If you got back too late you’d have to change the klister again which was a real pain. I believe I made three one day ski trips around the lake while I was stationed at Crater Lake. Snow surveys at Annie Springs and Headquarters were always fun. One survey we had 18 ft. on the ground and many ice layers in the snowpack. It took us 8 hours to complete one survey. We had sledding parties with the local employees when the road was closed at headquarters. We also skied down from Rim Village.
During Feb. of 1974 I finally got my first permanent assignment as a GS-3 Park Aid. I was really happy because I wanted to work for the NPS since I was in 7th grade. I had been a GS-5 seasonal Ranger but this was a permanent position. I went backwards in pay. We started into the spring with word that we would be part of the national campground reservation system. I got to attend reservation training in Yosemite NP. The folks designing the system weren’t real familiar with park phone systems and thought we had hard line phone systems. We told them that we had a microwave system and they told us that the computer reservation terminals would only work with hard line systems. That wasn’t good news. To make the system work all the information was faxed to us. The system was slow but it worked. Rim Village Campground was Crater Lake’s first reservation campground in 1974. The system has since come a long way. During the summer I became a GS-4 Park Technician. I was really moving up in the world and was supervising GS-5 seasonal rangers. We had a terrible patrol shift schedule where each day you had a different shift. Your first shift started in the afternoon and your last shift was midnight to 0800. Then we would have the maximum time off for days off. It looked good on paper but it really screwed up your biorhythms. I believe Ranger Vic Affolter was the instigator of this schedule.
During the winter of 1974/1975 many people at Crater Lake were experiencing intestinal problems. My supervisor Bob Ellis was very sick all winter. In March 1975 I accepted a job as a GS-5 Park Ranger at North Cascades NP. In approx. June 1975 concession employees, NPS employees, and visitors became sick at Crater Lake. The source was a contaminated water supply at Munson Springs. The sewage line from Rim Village became obstructed by a rock. Raw sewage backed up and started to flow out of a manhole and down hill to Munson Spring. Human fecal material entered the spring. Many of my sick friends came to North Cascades to visit me and drink good water. I had left the park at the right time.
These are just a few of my memories of Crater Lake. The area is special and so are the people I worked with. I have kept touch with many of my Crater Lake alumnus including Jackie and Nelson “Si” Siler, Bob and Donna Ellis, Paul Rose, Jim Wiggins, Jim and Bonnie Blaisdale, Scott Ranger, Bruce Kaye, and Linda and Larry Smith. Current Chief Ranger Dave Brennan and I worked together in Yosemite. I hope that folks who get the privilege to work at Crater Lake NP have as much fun as I had during my tenure there.
