At the Sinnott Memorial we have an observation station where you can hear a lecture and a museum.
We need a visitor center. We need an honest-to-God real visitor center. Hopefully, we’ll get it, on the rim. We need a good one. We don’t have one. But what we don’t need is a classroom to bring people up there and to teach school, as we envisioned it. This goes right down the line, whether it’s Tobin or Briggle or me or Babbitt or any one of those folks. That wasn’t any part of it. Remembering those days, if there were 50 other things that we would like to have done at Crater Lake, something like a classroom wouldn’t have made the list. It was that unimportant.
What were some of those other things?
A visitor center, of course.
I think of that as sort of a given.
A good fire program. A good backcountry management program. Expanded staff in virtually every area. Such programs as how do we get rid of those damn fish in the lake, politically and practically. Because those fish need to come out of there. Mark will tell you that. Those things should be gone.
Yes, that was evident in the 10-year study (74).
That’s right. We need to get rid of those damn fish. I think we need to get the rangers and the interpreters off their butts and out there in the field. I mean, we may hire a seasonal ranger to walk trails. But it’s been a long time since some of those permanent rangers have been out there walking trails. I think we need the interpreters out there. For example, how long has it been since we’ve had an interpreter walk, what’s the big mountain there on the east side of the lake?
Mount Scott.
How long has it been since we’ve had an interpreter, in uniform, hike Mount Scott?
Eight years.
That’s right. Yet it needs to be done. You need to involve that interpreter with the visitor out there in the field. What a better way. Man, interpreters just go absolutely wild with one, two, three people on the Mount Scott trail. My goodness, the opportunities there are just wonderful. And how long has it been since we’ve had an interpreter take a group of people by appointment and do a hike into the Sphagnum Bog (75)?
A long, long time.
Oh yeah, but what a wonderful opportunity. These are things that need [to be done], We’ve got to get the ranger and the interpreter out there on the ground. I can’t remember for sure how successful I was, but getting interpreters to give talks without their little slide projectors. Get them out there and let them interpret the resource as it is. Mount Scott, Sphagnum Bog, wherever.
