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1977
Winter 1977 John Day (in his 60’s) of Medford and the Italian Olympic ski team ski around the Rim in 6.5 hours. The Italian team claims that the snow conditions were so perfect, that if they hadn’t had “Old John” with them, they could have done the 36 miles in 2.75 hours. A snowmobile broke trail and set track ahead of the team. (Story related to Larry Smith by John Day while standing in Rim Village one winter morning.) John Day related how he used to have a heavy drinking problem. He would often board an airplane and show up in a country not knowing where he was going. One day he found himself in Norway and discovered crosscountry skiing. He claims to have been the main person to have introduced crosscountry sking to the US.
Ski legend, John Day, of Medford, invites the Italian National Team coach and his two top skiers to Oregon for a training clinic. They ended their visit by skiing the Crater Lake Rim in a record six and one-half hours. At age 55, John Day tried out for the 1964 U.S. Cross Country team but was turned down. In 1966 John founded the Oregon Nordic Club. After Day had mastered the Norwegian techniques of skiing, he entered the grueling 60-mile Hardanger Katjulen ski race, finishing it in 17 hours. When John was 46, his doctors told him he would never walk erect again due to severe arthritis in his back. He decided to prove them wrong. Eventually he climbed six major peaks in Washington state in nine days and over 250 major peaks. (information from John Lund)
From Sports Vault Illustrated: August 24, 1959. Some time ago,” relates John Day, the 50-year-old owner of a 4,000-acre cattle ranch on Oregon’s Rogue River, “I considered my 206 pounds and asked myself why I carried all that weight around.” Day decided to adopt a sport unfamiliar to him, mountaineering, and added a calorie-consuming new dimension—speed. Within eight weeks Day scaled the West Coast’s 17 major peaks, from Washington’s Mt. Baker to California’s Mt. Whitney. The other day he fulfilled a high ambition: a record climb of Washington’s Mt. Rainier. After several weeks of altitude conditioning in Colorado, Day picked up two guides and at one o’clock in the morning started to climb. After five hours and 20 minutes he and a group of companions reached the summit. With the 25-year-old record of 11 hours, 20 minutes firmly in mind, Day raced down in only a little over two hours. “When I saw we had a good chance of breaking eight hours we really started to move; we covered the last five miles on a dead run and when I looked at my watch I said to myself, ‘Well, I did it!
From Jefferson Public Radio, February 10, 2014: Episode 2340, As It Was
In the 1950s, Medford rancher and real estate developer John Stewart Day speed-climbed four Oregon peaks in a day and climbed six towering Washington mountains in nine days. An all-around outdoorsman, Day was a record-setting, big-game hunter and holder of several national age-group bicycle racing records. A Medford High School graduate, Day studied at Oregon State, the University of Oregon and the Harvard Business School. He married Mary Parsons, the daughter of a well-known Medford family. He owned the 4,000-acre Blue Moon Ranch near Central Point and developed properties in East Medford and the Gold Ray Estates near Sams Valley. After a 1960 mountaineering accident slowed him down at age 51, Day took up cross-country skiing and spent a winter in Norway learning to race. From his Medford office, he promoted Nordic skiing in Oregon and won a gold medal at age 74 in an international cross-country skiing competition. Day died in 1986. The following year the Southern Oregon chapter of the Oregon Nordic Club recognized his “extraordinary contribution to cross country skiing” by organizing the annual John Day Memorial ski race at Diamond Lake Resort, which will be held this year on Feb. 16.
John Day told Larry Smith, author, that because of his wife’s money he did not have to work. Instead he became a drunk. Often he would get on an airplane and was surprised at the landing destination after he sobered up. One time he ended up in Norway and witnessed people cross country skiing. This captured his fancy and he claims that he was the one who imported the idea of cross country skiing to the United States. (John related this story to Larry Smith while waxing skis in the Rim Village Parking Lot about 1978.)
Winter 1977 Free Ranger-led snowshoes hikes begun at Rim Village. Many of them were led by Larry Smith.
January 1977 Park Master Plan accepted for Crater Lake National Park. The plans call for keeping the Park as is, except for some small improvements. 50 tent sites will extend Mazama Campground and a camper store will be built. The Rim Center, Visitor Center and the Lodge sleeping cabins will be removed. The plans also call for a rerouting of the Rim Village cross traffic away from the edge of the Caldera and a restoration of the area with native plants. When funds become available, an all-weather Visitors Center will be built on the Rim in the middle of the old parking lot, in front of the Cafeteria. Thus the Visitors Center will become the focal point of interest and not the souvenir shop.
January 16 1977 Jackson County Sheriff Deputies arrest three subjects on Highway 62 who had stolen a purse from a car at Rim Village. The whole incident turns out to be a misunderstanding.
April 1977 Mr. George Woodfield, of Yakima, Washington, donates John Maben’s collection of negatives, manuscripts, diaries and photographs of Crater Lake to the Oregon Historical Society. John Maben was the first winter caretaker of Crater Lake Lodge in 1924. Maben had attracted considerable attention when his monthly dispatches about his solitary life at Cater Lake were published in national magazines. Maben’s collection was presented to the OHS in memory of Alta Knips Woodfield, Maben’s niece, who had done a great deal of research on the history of Crater Lake.
May 1977 Least yearly snowfall on record – 251.21 inches. (21 feet), but one of the wettest months on record.
May 1977 Excessive rain and low snow pack causes extensive damage to the North Road. In order to minimize shoulder damage, the road crews removes the boards covering the entrance to the North Junction Cave and allows 2 feet per second of water to drain into the cave for two weeks. The cave never did fill.
June 4 1977 The North Road is finally closed because of hazardous washout conditions in the Red Cone area caused by heavy snow run-off promoted by warm temperatures and the frozen ground.
Rescue of two young men from below Discovery Point.
June 10 1977 Senator Mark Hatfield visits Crater Lake and is hosted by the Concessionaire for breakfast.
July 1977 John Wesley Hillman’s grandniece, Pearl Verschoor of Medford, visits the Park.
Barry Vogel, boat driver, ascends the Cleetwood Trail in 10 minutes, 20 seconds and sets his sights on Olympic competition.
Two visitor vehicles burn to the ground.
Dutton Creek Trail is reopened to the public after many years of disuse. The trail was the original, 1860s, 70s and 80’s wagon trail to the Rim.
Construction begun on the widening of the first three miles of the West Rim Drive, beginning at Rim Village.
July 4 1977 Steven R. Sommerville, 14, of Wilmington, Delaware, falls to his death while attempting to climb down to the Lake from behind the lodge. His brother Douglas, 15, is rescued after failing to reach his brother. The father, an engineer with Sun Oil Company, had planned to take the boys on a boat trip, following short noontime nap in the Lodge.
With the Sommervilles were: brother James, 12, sister Rebecca, 10, father’s girlfriend, Martha Fitzatrick, who was a secretary at Dupont, her son, Matthew Stawicki, 7. Steven’s mother, Patricia, had died of leukemia in 1973.
Letters between Douglas, February 6, 2002 – Sublette@erols.com – and Lloyd and Larry Smith
From Douglas: I was surfing the web this evening, and out curiosity I thought I would see what information was out there on Crater Lake. I finally came upon your website, and I navigated around until I came up the 1977 entries. I am now 40 years old, and I am married but no children. I am a civilian engineer working for the Army at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland. My wife (Sarah) does know the story about my brother. My dad still lives in Delaware, and he is now retired from Sun Oil. My brother, Jim, still lives in Delaware and is still single. My sister is married and has one daughter – they are living in Maryland near Washington, DC. My dad had my brother, Steven, buried next to his mother in a cemetery in Wilmington, DE.
I did not realize that the Smith Brother’s website was maintained by park rangers – I guess that I had not searched long enough to hit that piece of information. Though in hindsight, it makes a lot of sense to have a website about a national park be maintained by park rangers.
I had not known that my brother and I had been spotted going over the wall. As far as I knew, nobody had known where we were until I started shouting for help after my brother fell. Who was the ranger that got me off the ledge?
Thank you for replying and for your assistance back in 1977. I am sorry that my brother and I had put you rangers in harm’s way – being typical teenage boys we were not thinking about what we were doing or the potential dangers involved. Douglas Sommerville.
400 Montgomery Court
Forest Hill, MD 21050
From Larry Smith – Doug, On July 4, 1977 I was working at the Sinnott Overlook, which is located just west of the Lodge. My father, Elmer, and my 7 year-old son, Brian, were walking up the Raven Trail from Park HQ when Dad heard your brother calling for help. Your brother hollered, “I am stuck and I can’t get back up.” Dad heard you yell, “I am coming down.” Then Dad heard rocks rolling over the cliffs. Dad rushed to the edge of the Rim in time to see down in response to your brother’s call. Dad then ran to the Overlook to find me. He said, “You had better get some rangers up on the Rim because there are some boys over the edge.” He told me to call for help. I ran to the back room of the overlook and made a phone call to HQ, but by the time the climbing crew arrived on the Rim, your bother had fallen. Dad told me that he wished he had been a few minutes earlier, and perhaps he could have stopped your brother from going down. I was at the VC when you were brought up, and did not see who did the rescue.
From Lloyd Smith – Douglas, Thank you for the note. I was so surprised to hear from you. I will also forward your note to my brother.
Several points
I was the ranger that took your dad down to headquarters to make the funeral arrangements. My father, Elmer Smith, and my nephew, Brian Smith, was the last one to see you guys go over the wall on the way down to the lake. He proceeded to the visitor’s center and reported you to my twin brother.
It was good hearing from you.
Lloyd Smith
From Brian Smith= I was with Grampa when we heard Douglas calling for help. I remember the Incident well. I was 7 years old and it is one of my early very clear memories. I remember Grampa saying to me, “What are those boys doing over the edge rolling rocks into the caldera?” I also remember watching the rangers go down over the side on the ropes being belayed and watching the hard hats go in and out of sight as they worked around the cliff edge trying to get down from the top and rescuing Doug. When they could not reach Stephen’s body I watched one of the tour boats come across the lake and access Stephen’s body from climbing up from the lakeshore. He still had a branch in his hands, which they figured he had grabbed as he went over the side of the cliff, which they figured he had grabbed as he went over the side of the cliff falling 400 feet to his death. The branch was from bushes he uprooted as he went over. The chute was directly beneath the Lodge, one of the chutes that funnels over a cliff band about 250 feet below the caldera rim. Had they gone down two chutes over to the right, I think they would have reached the lake shore safely.
The next day I was listening to the radio in our cabin when a news story came on mentioning that a 14 year-old boy had fallen to his death at Crater Lake. It really hit home for me as I listened to the story and realized that they were talking about the boys I had seen go over the edge the previous day. 7 year-olds don’t pay much attention to the news, but that story really jumped out and caught my attention. It was playing on the old tape recorder/radio at the bottom of the stairs in our cabin to the right of the oil-burning stove on the same wall as the stove.
I also remember about that same month hearing about two boys around age 12 who died while trying to jump across the Rogue River Gorge down at Union Creek and not making it across the canyon and falling into the churning water below.
Wow this really brought back some memories, which I have reflected on from time to time since I was 7. Brian Smith
July 23 1977 Four car clouters arrested by Rangers Lloyd Smith and Bruce Wadlington near Diamond Lake after stealing over $2,000 from two vehicles parked at Cleetwood Cove. The four were brought back to the Park and eventually lodged in the Jackson County Jail.
July 30 1977 Two C.B. radios, worth $448, are stolen from a camper at Mazama Campground through an elaborate confidence game.
August 1977 The Lodge Company, along with the help of Paul Herron, age 73, places new buoys at Cleetwood and removes the old anchors, which had been made from old engine blocks.
One Peregrine falcon seen flying over the Lake.
August 1 1977 Falling rocks on Cleetwood Cove Trail injures two women hikers.
The new Park Master Plan is now available for public inspection.
August 11 1977 Dr. Kenneth Cooper, the nationally famous aerobics expert and writer, visits the Park and walks the Lake Trail. Dr. Cooper is impressed with the annual marathon run and wants to involve some of his acquaintances. Dr. Cooper feels that people from all over the country would come to Crater Lake if they know about the run.
August 12 1977 Second annual Crater Lake marathon draws 206 runners for the three distance events. The winning time for the 26-mile run is 2 hours and 52 minutes and 18 seconds. A 63 year-old runner from Sacramento, California completes the marathon.
Rim Run Winners:
Men: 6.5
Dave Ellison Klamath Falls, Oregon 34.36 13.0 Dean Erhard Corvallis, Oregon 1:20.27 26.2 Jeff Barrie Portland, Oregon 2.53.18
Women: 6.5
Carol Kohlsheim Crater Lake, Oregon 59.25 13.0
Vicky Paddock Klamath Fall, Oregon 1.51.14 26.2
Susan Thomas Murdo, South Dakota 3:36.42
August 14 1977 Stolen van located at Rim Village.
August 17 1977 The Oregon State Health Department, with the assistance of the Fish and Game Commission, place cosmic radiation detection devices (thermoluminecient dosimeters) on a nylon rope at 30-meter increments anchored near the Lake’s deepest point. A buoy, to aid in relocating the instruments, is placed 30 feet below the surface to allow for stretching and not to be a hazard to the Crater Lake launches. The Commission plans to leave the instruments in place for 5 years.
August 25 1977 The Annie Spring flow drops to 0.4 cubic feet of water per second, or 200 gallons per minute. The lowest measurable flow on record. The lowest previous flow for Annie Spring occurred in 1968, when it measured 1.43 cubic feet per second. Park officials contemplate the drilling of wells to help augment the 85,000 gallons of water per day the Park consumes.
August 31 1977 An unseasonably low snow pack allows the Scoria Cone snow plug to melt out sufficiently to allow entry into he cone’s volcanic vent for the first time. Ranger Pat Allender rappels approximately 150 feet into the Scoria Cone Cave without finding bottom.
Summer 1977 Annie Spring reported to issue an average of 1,250,000 gallons per day. (410,000 per day during the low years.)
P.B.S. TV and filming crews spend time in the Park making a documentary film of the role of natural forest fires.
Car clouting in Mazama Campground. Six cars are entered with cash and jewelry taken.
The axle of the old Lincoln that had fallen down behind the Lodge years before is finally covered over from view by erosion and pumice dust. (Paul Herron)
September 1977 Several exploration of Scoria Cone follows Allender’s initial exploration. Allender, Vic Affolter, and Phil Grant descends over 150 feet into the feet and discover the “Ranger Room” cave, measuring 50 feet across with a vertical relief of 40 feet. A 10-inch piece of wood with an apparent sawn end is retrieved and identified as Douglas Fir. The wood is badly degraded. This type of breakdown is caused by hot water and steam, so there is the exciting possibility that the wood may have been in the vent while the cone was still active. A further indication that the wood is old is the lack of any Douglas fir in the area around Scoria Cone today. Pat Allender retrieved the wood from the lowest chamber of the vent. The wood sample was given to Joy Mastrogiuseppe of Eastern Washington College in Pullman, Washington, in hopes of getting the wood carbon dated. Eventually dated at: 3900 years.
September 2 1977 Rangers Sholly and Pat Allender rappel into Scoria Cone. The two men spend 8 hours investigating several long sloping vents. Many rooms are discovered with some measuring 50 feet long, by 20 feet wide and 20 feet high.
September 20 1977 The first large scale exploration of the interior of Scoria Cone is conducted by Dan Mason, Dave Lange, John Davis, Chief Ranger Dan Sholly and Geology expert, Stan Mertzman. Sholly and Lange descend to a depth of 400 to 500 feet and explore two additional “chimneys” or conduits, 12 feet by 25 feet each with a vertical relief of 200 feet. During the arduous trek out, near midnight, the Chief is struck on the arm by a falling rock and because of his injured arm, Dan is forced to pull himself out using only one arm.
September 20 1977 Mining is no longer allowed within any National Park areas except for those claims already approved.
October 1977 Contract awarded for installing a new PBX phone system.
October 14 1977 The old North Entrance employee cabin is burned as a fire training exercise. It used to house 4 seasonal rangers.
October 1977 A sick ground squirrel found the North East corner of the park is found to have Sylvan plague.
Season 1977 Visitation: 617, 479, a new Park record. Still holding as of 1996 (Online says: 558,300)
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