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1963
January 1963 Two men ski around the Rim in ten hours.
January 31 1963 The least amount of snow recorded on the ground for a season, with only 44 inches of measurable snow.
March 19 1963 Maintenance Supervisor, Riacher “Dick” Varnum is issued patent number 3,081,565 for a Cutter Attachment for Rotary Snow Plows.
My invention consists in a new and useful improvement in apparatus for snow removal and is designed particularly for operation against snow banks or drifts: and in such conditions of snow removal as that the depth of snow is considerable and the snow has become tightly packed and. hardened. Such conditions. quite common in places of frequent and long continued snows and exceedingly low temperatures, render use less ordinary snow removal devices, such: as plows and brushes. My improved device is designed to disintegrate hard frozen and densely packed snow banks and rapidly remove the loosened snow.
The particularly novel and useful features of my device are the scarifier, in the form of a heavy drum having steel hooks with sharp; points by which the hardened snow is disintegrated, an improved form of concave scoop to supply the disintegrated snow to the removal mechanism, and: my improved: rotor for ejecting the loosened snow, supplied to it by the concave scoop, through its discharge throatand spout. The particularly novel feature of my improved rotor is the novel scoops with” which it is supplied. These rotor scoops are so designed and mounted that they extend forwardly from the ‘hub of the rotor toward the supply scoop’ below the scarifier so-that” the loose snow is guided by the concave scoopinto these rotor scoops; I also provide a shield over the upper half of the forward side of the rotor so that the snow is supplied by the concave scoop only on the lower half of the rotor.
August 1963 Due to the low snow year, seasonal ranger Vic Affolter is able to investigate Scoria Cone Cave. Normally a large snow plug blocks the entrance to the crater cave. The investigation reveals a hole extending down to the heart of the cone. The hole is approximately 200 feet vertical from the north side and approximately 100 to 135 feet semi-vertical with an 80-degree slope on the south side.
August 2 1963 Fatal on-the-job accident, when a dump truck backs over a construction worker during the rebuilding of the South entrance road. (Story from the author.)
August 7 1963 Fatal heart attack.
Summer 1963 A survey of the archaeological resources of Crater Lake National Park and Oregon Caves National Monument was carried out by a University of Oregon field party during the 1963 summer field season. The purpose of the project was to determine the extent of aboriginal occupation and utilization of the areas. The project was authorized by the National Park Service under the Mission 66 program, The survey of the Oregon Caves and Crater Lake regions yielded almost completely negative results. No evidence of aboriginal occupation or use was found on the Monument or adjacent lands, and the evidence at Crater Lake consists of a few flakes and projectile points. Our study showed that the areas were suboptimal habitats for aboriginal groups dependent upon hunting and gathering subsistence economies. Archaeological Surveys of Crater Lake National Park and Oregon Caves National Monument, Oregon by Wilbur a. Davis 1963.
Annie Creek loop trail opens behind Mazama Campground. Initally called the “Camp Fire Trail” in reference to the eveing programs held at the amphitheater; the name was later changed to “Annie Creek Trail.” Conceived and planned by Chief of Interp. Bruce Black.
Summer 1963 The old, 1920’s and 30’s wooden utility shops, across from the new maintenance shops are torn down.
Paul Fritz becomes the Park’s last Landscape Architect, (‘63-’64) working on the vegetative restoration of new road cuts and the areas around the new buildings in Steel Circle. Paul eventually becomes involved in the establishment of the Redwoods National Park where he discovers the World’s tallest tree. The discovery is covered by an article in the National Geographic.
From the January 29, 2001 issue of High Country News
We have reached a time when many conservation legends of the 20th century are very influential conservationist. Paul Fritz died quite suddenly on Christmas Eve from an undiagnosed brain tumor. He was 71.
Fritz’s generation possesses a pure conviction for preserving wild places, and a strong sense of duty to their country. They came of age on the heels of the Depression. They watched young friends and family members die from medical maladies that are easily treatable today. Many of them served in the military. They knew that life was precious, and they lived it with gusto.
“The young Americans of this time constituted a generation birth-marked for greatness,” wrote Tom Brokaw in The Greatest Generation.
Fritz’s fiery personality was a product of growing up in Yonkers, N.Y., where he was a street fighter and high school football player. Every once in a while in later years, Fritz’s temper would emerge when a pro-development foe pushed him too far, and he’d threaten to grab the tire iron from the trunk of his car and take him on.
Fritz even looked like a thug – with his broad shoulders, thick neck, bald head and big piercing eyes. “He was like a bull charging through the woods,” says Martin Litton, a Sierra Club national board member and Grand Canyon boatman.
He had a soft side, too, and a big heart.
Fritz was bitten by a zeal to protect wild places when he spent his college summers as a fire lookout at Yellowstone National Park. In his 20-year career with the Park Service, he had a major hand in protecting all kinds of parks and monuments in the West, including Redwood, Arches, Canyonlands and Crater Lake national parks, Craters of the Moon National Monument, and many of Alaska’s parks, monuments, refuges and wilderness areas.
Fritz was politically savvy. He hung out with environmentalists at parties. He contributed to the campaigns of moderate and powerful Republicans. He worked side by side with Ed Abbey at Arches National Park. He knew county commissioners, chamber of commerce directors and educators – all of the people it takes to build support for a park.
After Fritz retired from government service, he joined the boards of a number of grassroots environmental groups in the West, including the Alliance for the Wild Rockies, Hells Canyon Preservation Council and the advisory board of the Oregon Natural Desert Association. He gave money to many other groups, including the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance and Greater Yellowstone Coalition.
Fritz received “The Sargent Award” from the GYC in the fall of 2000 for not only being a founder of the group, but also for the legacy he’s left in his wake.
“Paul was one of a kind,” says good friend Michael Frome, a widely published conservation writer. “He was independent and outspoken, shall we say, and he got away with it. He was a public servant who really served the public, above all.
Summer 1963 A woman passenger is killed when the family’s travel trailer runs off the road near the Pumice Desert and flips the car. The children become hysterical when they hear the news of their mother’s death over the Ranger radio while being transported to the hospital. Chief Ranger Buck Evens institutes a strict policy of keeping the car radios turned down in the presence of family members. (Oral story from Chief Ranger Evens, collected by the author)
October 1963 The Park’s old stand-by generator, near Steel Circle, is replaced with a much larger one from Death Valley National Monument.
Season 1963 Visitation: 475,684
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