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2012
February 9 2012 Crater Lake NPS to have Final Decision on Helicopters
By Jeff Barnard, AP Environmental Writer
The National Park Service will have the power to ban helicopter flights over Crater Lake without having to go through so much red tape.
Oregon Democrats Sen. Ron Wyden and Sen. Jeff Merkley inserted a provision giving that power to the park service into a Federal Aviation Administration bill that Congress passed this week “It’s a lot more than just some helicopter or jet flies over and disturbs someone at an overlook looking at beautiful and serene Crater Lake,” Ackerman said. “There are a lot of other impacts that are not as immediately apparent to people that could be just as significant or more significant.”
The issue dates to 2009, when Leading Edge Aviation of Bend applied to the FAA for permission to offer helicopter tours giving views of Crater Lake, which is known for its deep blue waters in the caldera of a volcano that blew its top some 7,700 years ago.
Ackerman said the bill gives the park service authority over whether to allow air tours at Crater Lake without having to develop that formal plan, a lengthy and complicated process.
Studies so far have noted that the park is an area with a high degree of natural quiet. The sounds of elk snorting, owls hooting, insects buzzing and aircraft flying far overhead were readily audible, he said. The study has noted that a tree frog stopped making its mating call when planes flew overhead.
March 14 2012 Snowpack gets boost By SAMANTHA TIPLER H&N Staff Reporter At Crater Lake, the total snow depth is 81 inches, below its normal average of 117 inches.
Spring 2012 New park brochure issued replacing the 1974 design. The new brochure and map takes into account the Park’s Indian legacy.
May 5 2012 By Ryan Pfeil Mail Tribune
UNION CREEK — After a night of searching for a man who slipped and fell Thursday into fast-moving rapids near the Rogue River Gorge, search-and-rescue crews from three counties called it quits Friday afternoon.
The man, identified by the Jackson County Sheriff’s Department as 21-year-old Pablo Murillo, was visiting from Mexico and had been touring the area with relatives.
They were on their way back from Crater Lake when they stopped at the Gorge — just down the road from Beckie’s Cafe, along the 56400 block of Highway 62 — to take a quick look around.
Sheriff’s officials said they believe he is dead.
This is not the first incident involving someone falling into the water near the Gorge. Those who fall in are typically sucked into lava tubes or smash into rocks along the river’s stretch. In 2008, 16-year-old Vance Falls fell into the fast-moving river while visiting from North Carolina, but he survived.
July 2012 After more than 30 years of federal government service, Chief ranger Pete Reinhardt retired from Crater Lake National Park. For 28 of those years, he was a federal law enforcement officer.
Pete reflects on his career path. “All I have ever wanted to be was a park ranger. My legacy has been all about saving lives and helping people. Besides marrying his wife Debbie, his other greatest achievements are his four children, all of whom now work for National Park Service. Pete emphasizes, “I am most proud of the young people that I have brought into the service, especially my own children. This morning our son Luke woke up in C camp at Denali. Our daughter Brittany closed last evening out working a rollover accident in a corner of Yosemite. Our son Shawn travels this week to Pt. Reyes for the summer. Our daughter Kara will mentor YCC youth enrollees at Crater Lake forthe summer season.”
Pete was replaced by Curt Dimmick as the new Chief Ranger coming in from Great Smokies and Great Basin national parks.
August 11 2012 Marathon not just for natives By STEVE MATTHIES H&N Sports Editor Herald and News
Shizuko Watanabe had the chance of a lifetime — and took it.
The 34-year-old geology professor at Eastfield Community College in Dallas Texas, celebrated her birthday in style, by winning the women’s marathon Saturday.
“It’s my birthday weekend, and we are between sessions at the college I work at, so this was my birthday gift to myself,” Watanabe said “Crater Lake is one of the places I always wanted to visit. I always talk about the creation of Crater Lake to my students. Now, I can show them my own pictures.”
Born in Japan, Watanabe gave the 37th annual Crater Lake Rim Runs and Marathon an international look, especially in the 26-mile, 385-yard race.
She was not the only foreign-born marathon winner Saturday on a warm, humid day when the skies often were laden with smoke from numerous area forest fires.
Ian Sharman was the first runner to finish the marathon, and his time was two hours, 54 minutes and four seconds.
The London, England-born Sharman finished more than 24 minutes ahead of runner-up Dean Morris of Klamath Falls.
Watanabe, as the first woman to finish the marathon, was fifth overall in 3:30.53. Nance Anne Hickman was second among the women, and timed in 3:49:45.
“I started slow,” Watanabe said of her race, “and that last hill (23 miles into the race) was a killer,” the professor said. “I wasn’t expecting that at all, and I walked a little bit (of the uphill). But it was a wonderful race. Everyone here was wonderful. The aid stations were wonderful.”
For Sharman, who now lives in Bend, Saturday’s marathon was treated more like a training session.
“I usually do ultra-marathons, but this race is local. It’s convenient. I have friends who have won this race.
“I enjoyed it, but that long climb to the top (of the Rim Drive near Mount Scott) was tough. So is tha
t last one (at 23 miles). It’s a killer,” Sharman said. “This is a tough course. The altitude, plus the climb, the course feels harder than it should.”
August 12 2012 Two Californians swim into history with double crossing of Crater Lake
Published: Friday, August 24, 2012, The Oregonian BY: LISA BURROS
Tony Lillios always wanted to set records. As a boy, he set up his dominoes in an effort to qualify for the Guinness World Records — a good attempt. So when his business partner, who had recently visited Crater Lake National Park, wondered aloud if anyone had ever swum across the lake, Lillios knew immediately that he wanted to be the one to do it.
He was more than 80 years too late to be the first to swim across the lake, it turns out, but he and fellow open-water swimmer Kate Howell, both of San Francisco, set the bar higher. On Aug. 13, they became the first known to swim across the lake and back, a distance of 12 miles, which they accomplished without any support craft.
“It’s never been done,” said Larry Smith, a former Crater Lake Park ranger and author of “The Smith Brothers Chronological History of Crater Lake National Park,” with his twin brother, Lloyd. “There has never been anything like this before. A double crossing!”
In 1929, Lee Fourrier became the first person to swim across Crater Lake, but her swim was only one way. More recently, serious swimmers ride out to Wizard Island on one of the tour boats and swim to the dock, as the boat dock is the only legal access to the water from the rim.
On the morning of Aug. 13, Howell and Lillios went into the lake from the boat dock at Cleetwood Cove Trail, and kept going. Though the water was only about 55 degrees, they did not wear wetsuits. “As soon as we jumped in the water, we knew we could do it,” said Howell, 29.
It didn’t take long for them to attract the attention of park rangers. Although swimming across the lake is not prohibited, they were not on a course for Wizard Island that rangers would have expected, so a rescue craft was dispatched.
“We were worried we’d get in trouble,” Howell said. “We thought they were coming to pull us out.” The duo politely declined assistance, and the rangers left them to their adventure.
Lillios, 43, said the first crossing took about three hours, and took them to a point at the base of Garfield Peak, which is not far from Crater Lake Lodge. He carried a lunch with him in a dry bag, so they could eat, rest and warm up at the far edge, though dragging the bag behind him made the swim more challenging.
He also carried a GPS to record his course and a water purification kit, but the rangers told him not to bother, as the lake is pure enough to drink.
The return trip took about 3 1/2 hours.
Swimming across the lake does not currently require a permit, but a permit requirement is under consideration, according to Dave Grimes, a park ranger at Crater Lake National Park. He said the main concern is to prevent the introduction of non-native organisms into the lake.
“We prefer swimmers not wear wetsuits, as the suit may carry organisms from the last body of water it was in.” Grimes did point out that leaving the water is allowed only at the boat dock and on Wizard Island, so Lillios and Howell were technically in violation at their turn-around point.
Lillios and Howell both cautioned that attempting a swim across the deepest lake in America is not for the ill prepared. Lillios said he had been planning this event for about two years. Personal watercraft are strictly prohibited on Crater Lake, which means their swim was completed without a support boat.
“That is extremely rare,” Lillios said. In preparation, he researched conditions including altitude, air and water temperature, and weather. “The conditions were perfect,” he said, for swimming in what he described as “possibly the clearest water in the world.”
“When we started out with the sun behind the rim, the lake was perfectly still. We could see a perfect reflection all around of the caldera on the surface as we swam. The fantail we left behind us as we swam were the only ripples on the lake for hours,” Lillios said.
“We had the whole lake to ourselves. Those first few hours swimming into the unknown will forever be held as one of my most special moments swimming.”
They arrived back at the dock to applause from onlookers. “People said they were inspired,” Lillios said. “That was amazing.”
August 30 2012 Scuba ban aimed at keeping Crater Lake pristine
Scuba gear will be banned from the lake until rules against invasive species are established. Concerned about aquatic invasive species that have popped up in other lakes across the country, Crater Lake National Park officials have temporarily closed the lake’s pristine waters to scuba diving and the use of other water gear.
“We have seen the devastation to ecosystems and economies caused by the inadvertent introduction of invasive species from Lake Mead to Lake Erie,” said park Superintendent Craig Ackerman.
“We want to prevent it from happening at Crater Lake rather than deal with the aftermath,” he added. “The increasing popularity of the lake for scuba diving also increases the opportunities for divers and their gear to carry microscopic ‘hitchhikers’ into the water.”
Although the invasive species may be tiny, the damage caused by introducing them into the lake is enormous and often irreversible, he noted. (Mail Tribune)
Summer 2012 Black Bear Census a Success
The results are in! Last summer’s edition of this publication described efforts by park biologists to count the number of black bears inhabiting Crater Lake National Park. From July through September, biologists deployed “bear hair snare” devices in trees throughout the park and collected a total of 46 hair samples from bears that ascended the trees in pursuit of scented bait. DNA analysis now reveals that 27 individual bears “donated” hair to the survey, giviny us the minimum number of bears that utilized the park during the summer of 2009. Somewhat surprisingly, 70% of the individuals were female. This might relate to the fact that females typically have a smaller home range than males, allowing more of them to occupy the park without directly competing with each other. It might also indicate that the park is home to a fairly healthy and stable population. In the future, biologists hope to track bear movements using GPS technology to understand precisely how black bears utilize Crater Lake National Park.
Crayfish: A Threat to Crater Lake?
Hikers who soak their feet at the bottom of the Cleetwood Cove Trail are often surprised by what they see in the water when they dangle their toes. A population of crayfish (Paci- fastacus leniusculus) is thriving along the rocky shoreline, causing scientists to wonder about its origin and its potential impact on the lake’s ecology. Are crayfish peaceful native residents of Crater Lake or harmful invaders?
Little was known about the lake’s crayfish until 2008, when John Umek, a student at the University of Nevada, Reno, arrived in the park to conduct research for his Ph.D. To understand the species’ distribution and abundance, he set hundreds of traps and searched for crayfish while snorkeling at 39 locations along the shore. Umek identified two distinct populations: one centered in Cleetwood Cove and one around Wizard Island. He also found a few individuals below Crater Lake Lodge.
In a process called “mark- recapture,” crayfish are trapped, branded with Roman numerals, and re- leased back into the lake. Months or years later,
if the same crayfish are caught again, researchers can measure their rate of growth.
Crayfish are most abundant near the Cleetwood Cove and Wizard Island boat docks. And curiously, the few crayfish be- low Crater Lake Lodge live near the site of the park’s original boat dock, no longer in existence. These findings support the theory that crayfish are not native to Crater Lake but were introduced by humans as food for rainbow trout. (Rainbow trout were stocked in the lake from 1888 to 1941 and persist, along with introduced kokanee salmon, to this day.) This view is also supported by a scientific report from the 1930s that claims crayfish were planted on Wizard Island in 1915.
Umek’s 2008 survey also revealed something interesting about the vertical distribution of crayfish in Crater Lake. Although traps that were placed 3 to 10 meters (10 to 33 feet) deep yielded the largest catch, several crayfish found their way into traps resting 250 meters (820 feet) down on the floor of Cleetwood Cove. Nowhere else in the world have crayfish been reported living at such great depths.
In 2009, John Umek returned to the park to investigate a more critical question: are crayfish having an effect on Crater Lake’s ecology? To find out, he used an underwater vacuum to scoop up sediments from the lake floor, both in locations where crayfish were absent as well as abundant. He then painstakingly sorted through the sediments in search of insects, worms, snails, and other bottom- dwelling creatures.
The difference was remarkable. Whereas Umek found up to 600 “benthic invertebrates” living in one square meter’s worth of material taken from crayfish-free areas, he counted no more than 100 organisms per square meter in crayfish-inhabited areas. Some species, including snails, were missing entirely from crayfish terrain. All told, Umek found a richer biodiversity—and 8 times as many individual organisms—in places without a crayfish presence.
Park scientists are concerned, too, that crayfish appear to be having a negative impact on larger residents of the shoreline community, including newts, salamanders, and frogs. It’s not yet clear whether crayfish are preying on these organisms or simply out-competing them for resources. Like humans, crayfish are omnivores. They will eat almost anything, from algae to small fish.
Umek, who is also studying crayfish in Lake Tahoe, plans to return to Crater Lake this summer for additional research. Snorkel surveys in 2009 indicated that crayfish might be expanding their range eastward along the north shore. Will the lake’s entire circumference someday be populated by crayfish, as at Lake Tahoe? Is the threat significant enough to warrant attempts to control the crayfish population?
Right now, there are more questions than answers, but one thing’s for sure: beneath the placid surface of Crater Lake a myriad of organisms, including crayfish, are engaged in a life-and-death struggle for food, territory, and survival. (Crater Lake Reflections 2012 issue)
June 2012 The High Sierra foxes current range has been extended by recent webcam discoveries.
In August, 2010, a handful were discovered fortuitously by motion sensitive cameras near Sonora Pass set up to detect rare Fisher (Martes pennanti) and Marten (Martes americana). These Sierra Nevada red foxes were photographed in the central Sierra Nevada, more than 200 miles away from Lassen Peak, and genetic analysis of saliva from bites on a bait bag was compared to museum specimens from prior to 1926, confirming their identity.[9][10] They had not been seen in the Sonora Pass area since 1925. In March 2011 a ski slope groomer on Mount Hood snapped a shot with his flip phone which spurred scientists to set up webcams in Oregon. These subsequently confirmed fox populations not only on Mount Hood, but also 200+ miles south at Crater Lake in June 2012. Wickpedia
Summer 2012 Comprehensive trail survey begun to help decide the future of the hiking trails inside the park. The plan will help decide which trails to decommission, which ones need rehabbing, and the potential for new trails.
Long-term study begun to determine the best approach to rehabilitate the Historic Rim Road. Parts of the road are sloughing way. The plan calls for the possibility of lowering the roadbed in places to gain added roadbed width. Work may begin in 2013 or 2014.
10 injured park visitors are airlifted out to area hospitals by Mercy Flights because of heart , falls from bikes, a head injury from a rock striking a lady in the head on the Cleetwood Trail, and car accidents.
Plaikni Fall Trail becomes the second most popular trial in the Park, after Cleetwood, requiring the enlarging of the one year-old parking lot. Located to the southeast of the the one-mile path ambles through a forest of old-growth mountain hemlock to a wildflower glen with a 20-foot waterfall. The route is easy enough even for visitors with strollers or wheelchairs.
Sun Notch Trail relocated away from the middle meadow into the fringe of trees. A new overlook is built and a new interpretive display is installed.
October 2012 A new $250,000 park film is competed replacing the 1975 Kevin Peer’s film, “The Crater Lake Story” and KSYS Channel 8’s production: Mirror of Heaven. Produced by Great Divide Films and narrated by Peter Coyote. Chief of Interpretation Marsha McCabe says of the film, “I cry every time I see it.” The Park will be updating the very old Steel video system with new high definition equipment.
44 new wayside interpretive displays are being installed. The cost for the project will be $250,000. The new design style will be full-color panoramas.
These new projects are being funded by fee collection monies.
December 2012 Park Superintendent Craig Ackerman announces plans to completely rebuild Crater Lake’s historic Rim Drive, in cooperation with the Federal Highway Administration. The project will include the rehabilitation of the roadbed and rockfall mitigation along 30 miles Rim Drive, including 5.9 miles of West Rim Drive and 23.5 miles of East Rim Drive. The proposed project also includes improvements to parking areas at Cleetwood Cove and Rim Village; stonewall repairs, and drainage work.
“Portions of the existing pavement of both East and West Rim drives have exceeded their service life. The roads have suffered from incremental erosion of the road bench supporting the pavement due to the soft underlying pumice soils and rock. Historic masionry guardwalls, contributing elements to the National Resgister listing of Rim Drive, are failing and in some locations will require stabilization to prevent further damage. Rockfall from the steep slopes bordering Rim Drive is a common event that has the potential of damaging the road and endangering travel. The overall goal of the project is to improve the efficiency of park operations by correcting structural deficiencies and reducing maintenance requirements, as well as providing for visitor enjoyment and safety while protecting the park’s scenic, natural, and cultural resources.”
The projects are projected in the Park’s future budgets. The Rockfall Mitigation is projected for FY14, West Rim and Cleetwood Parking Area FY15-16 and East Rim maybe around FY20.
- Rockfall Mitigation $1.5 million
- West Rim Drive $10.5 million
- East Rim Drive $ 4.9 million.
2012 Park Budget: $5,318,000
2012 Annual Visitation: 447,251
A study conducted by the National Park Service says the 447,251 visitors to Crater Lake National Park in 2012 spent over $36 million in communities near the park and supported 551 jobs in the local area.
“National Park tourism is a significant driver in the national economy – returning $10 for every $1 invested in the National Park Service – and it’s a big factor in our local economy as well,” Superintendent Criag Ackerman said. “We appreciate the partnership and support of our neighbors and are glad to be able to give back by helping to sustain local communities.”
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