Becky Foiles said the rangers had rigged up a toboggan for her. Her baby came in February and they had to take her down the hill to get to the road.
(DR) They’ve had some really strange [things]. The thing that upset me, and I called Superintendent Benton and talked to him over the phone and I came up last year hoping to meet him and talk to him afterwards. There was an article in the paper written by some freelance writer for the [Portland] Oregonian emphasizing all the negative parts of living in the park in the wintertime. It was, to me, such as one-sided thing and I was so upset that I wrote both Francis Lange and Rudy Lueck and called Superintendent Benton on the phone (17). The superintendent agreed that he thought it was rather negative and invited the man back the following year to get a little more positive side. We read about all of the trauma and all of the trouble they had and we…
(SR) People were divorcing because they couldn’t take the winters.
I’ve heard just the opposite. There’s all these romances, and people met their wives here, got married here.
(SR) That was our time.
(DR) It was a very bad picture. For example, we were, for the best part of a week, I won’t say a full week, one winter without water. What had happened….
(SR) Oh, trying to wash diapers. Melt snow.
(DR) Melt snow, right. It was often that we would be without electricity.
(SR) Without lights a lot of the time.
(DR) But we improvised and we took it in stride and figured it was part of the life of living in the park. We enjoyed the summers and the fall. The summers were busy and hectic, but the falls and the springs were enjoyable, particularly the fall and the early winter months before the snow got awfully deep. It was just heavenly up here.
