Snow removal, especially during years of heavy snowfall, was a major undertaking of park maintenance crews. For instance, the winter of 1926-27 witnessed a total snowfall of more than 51 feet, the snow being heavily compacted by spring thaws. This amount of snow was difficult to remove, since there was no mechanical snow removal equipment available. To permit visitors to enter the park it was necessary to clear more than fifteen miles of heavy snow by using explosives and shovels. This gargantuan feat was finally completed on July 2, thus causing the park’s 1927 summer season to commence five weeks later than the year before. [7]
By 1929 park maintenance operations had been assigned to various departments, including engineering, landscape, sanitation, electrical, and mechanical. This division of responsibilities for maintenance would continue into the 1940s. The engineering department was in charge of Engineer Ward P. Webber who was connected with the field headquarters office in San Francisco and loaned to the park during the travel season. The division had charge of road and trail maintenance and improvements, snow removal, and building upkeep. Concerning these responsibilities and related problems, Superintendent Solinsky observed:
Road maintenance–Due to the lack of proper equipment, maintenance work was held to a minimum, with the result that all of our roads, with the exception of about 22 miles of pavement, were in very poor condition. The soil in this vicinity is principally a dry pumice ash and makes an extremely poor roadbed, with the result that our roads become very dusty and rough and are very disagreeable to travel over. This is particularly true of the Rim Road.
Snow removal–There is no mechanical snow removal equipment in this park, and it becomes necessary each spring to expend considerable sums for labor to clear our roads of snow in time for the opening date. The roads of the park were opened this season on the following dates: Klamath-Medford Loop, June 12; Anna Spring to Rim, June 22; east entrance, June 24; north entrance, July 6; Rim Road, July 13.
Road improvement–The east entrance road from its connection with the Dalles-California Highway to the park entrance, a distance of approximately 5 miles, was reconstructed and surfaced with crushed rock. This road was also improved in a like manner for a distance of 1.9 miles within the park boundary.
The pavement on the Government camp Rim Road had to be torn up, reprocessed, and relaid. This was due to improper mixing last fall during the cold weather. A crew of three men were employed during August in repairing and patching holes in the paved park roads.
As to building maintenance Solinsky noted that the interiors of the new employees’ residences at Government Camp were painted.
In 1929 the sum of $1,500 was allotted to the park for roadside cleanup and landscape improvement. The work was confined to one mile along the Anna Spring-Government Camp road. Debris and trash, resulting from road and trail construction, were cleaned up in the rim area, and planting was done to eliminate the dust.
The sanitary department was handled by a crew of four men with the use of a light truck. The campgrounds were kept clean, and garbage and refuse from the camps and concessioner facilities were disposed of on a daily basis.
The park electrical department kept the telephone system in repair, and the mechanical department under the direction of a master mechanic (with the aid of several seasonals) had charge of the overhaul and repair of park vehicles and equipment. While the vehicles and equipment had been overhauled during the fall and winter, the park vehicles were a continuing source of trouble and expense. With the exception of two trucks, all of the park vehicles “came from war surplus stock” and had “long since outlived their usefulness.” [8]
