6,500
feet up and 16 feet deep: when you work at Crater Lake, the
snowfall comes with the territory
Mail Tribune
Medford, Oregon
December 20, 2001
By PAUL FATTIG
Mail Tribune photos / Roy Musitelli
Crater Lake National Park
employee Phil Kelley, above, ascends a stairway from a deep
snowpack to his second-floor office at the park's headquarters
complex. Kelley says he appreciates the slow pace winter brings
to the park. Below: Park historian Steve Mark says at 192
inches, snowfall at the park is a little ahead of average for
this time of year.
Steve Mark suggests that all new National Park Service employees
facing their first winter at Crater Lake be required to watch
"The Shining."
Though the park historian was holding his tongue firmly in cheek
while talking about the 1980 flick, which features a snowed-in
Jack Nicholson slowly going mad at an isolated mountain resort,
his point is well taken.
Snowbound isolation is a normal part of winter life at Oregon's
only national park, where a white Christmas is taken for
granted.
"This is not Alaska, but the snow can get to you sometimes,"
Mark said.
Never mind that winter just arrived Friday. With more than seven
feet of packed snow on the ground, the windows on the first
floors of the park headquarters are already buried in snow.
Nearly 16 feet - 192 inches - of snow has floated down on the
park this fall.
Severe winter conditions are believed to be the cause of a
telephone service outage that hit the park headquarters on Dec.
13. However, employees were able to use radios and cell phones
to communicate with the outside world before service was
restored Friday.
But there are more than three long months left before the
snowfall traditionally crests on April 1.
"We're running a little ahead of average now," Mark said. "Last
year at this time, we were way behind."
Mark, 44, who has worked at the park for 14 years, could see out
the first-floor windows in his office all winter long during
last year's drought.
The agency built the headquarters at the 6,500-foot level
because it offers some shelter from the storm. Indeed, the
crater rim, a little more than 500 feet above the headquarters,
is frozen in arctic weather for the winter.
"The ridge behind us here cuts the wind and reduces the
snowfall," Mark said. "If we were up on top, the weather would
be much, much worse."
It has been bad enough, he acknowledged. Although the park has
remained open, travel has been troublesome, thanks to persistent
heavy snowfall.
The road from park headquarters to the rim has been closed most
of December. Snowplow crews have been concentrating on Highway
62, which connects the park with outside communities.
"We haven't had this much snow this early in the year since
'84," said Jim Houlihan, 53, a snowplow and snowblower operator
in the park.
|
A matter
of inches
The most
snow recorded at Crater Lake National Park was the 879
inches that fell during the winter of 1932-33.
That's
slightly more than 73 feet of snow.
The
lowest snowfall came in 1991-92, when a relatively scant
243 inches was recorded.
Last
winter brought 277 inches, the third lowest on record.
The 1976-77 winter measured 251 inches.
The
average for the park's water year, which begins July 1
and ends June 30, is around 500 inches, give or take a
few feet.
Complete
snowfall records at the park go back to the winter of
1926-27. |
"We've been going at it every day without much of a break," he
added. "We've been putting in the overtime."
The work has been taxing on the equipment. Two of the park's
three rotary plows, which help blow snow up and over roadways,
and two of three push plows have been out of commission.
"That's why we can't get to the rim right now," he said of the
temporary road closure.
Yet Houlihan, a Chicago native who lives near the headquarters,
is no stranger to snow.
"Not this much," he acknowledged, then added, "But the weather
here doesn't bother me. I like it."
So does fellow park employee Phil Kelley, a cartographer by
training who taught his craft and geography for years at
Minnesota State University. He is starting his third winter at
the park.
"I'm used to snow but not quite this much," he said. "We got
maybe two feet back in Minnesota. Of course, we didn't talk
weather in Minnesota without mentioning wind chill."
Up until a few weeks ago, he and his wife, Mary, lived in staff
housing at the park. They since moved onto property they own
adjacent to Agency Lake near Klamath Lake.
Like many who spend their winters at the park, he appreciates
the frozen quiet of winter.
"It's a lot less hectic, a lot less rushed," Kelley said.
"That's when you catch up on all the stuff you don't have time
to do during the summer."
About a half-million people visit Crater Lake each year. But
most come during the short summer.
Still, there is a steady trickle of winter visitors. Most come
for cross country skiing. Others just want to take in the beauty
and the incredible silence.
Gray jays and black ravens winter at the park along with about
two dozen park employees.
"We have more snow on the ground now than we had at the end of
the snow season last year," Kelley observed. "It's an early wet
winter.
"But if you own cross country skis, you're OK," he added.
Mark, who also loves the park's environs - whether warm or
winter - agreed. Still, there is such a thing as too much snow,
he reiterated.
"Sometimes the road crew just can't keep up with it, especially
when you start getting more than an inch an hour," said Mark,
who usually travels daily to work from Fort Klamath where he and
his wife, Amy, own a home.
He recalled one series of storms that kept them holed up for
eight days in one of the historic cabins that looks like a
gingerbread house buried in snow. The couple had been renting
one of the houses at the time.
"You can't see out once the snow starts piling up," he said. "It
stormed every day - I was never so happy to get down to Fort
Klamath in my life."
Reach reporter Paul Fattig at 776-4496 or e-mail him at pfattig@mailtribune.com
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