Mount Rainier Administrative History

PART FOUR: DEPRESSION AND WAR YEARS, 1930-1945

X. VISITOR USE IN THE DEPRESSION ERA

INTRODUCTION

The Great Depression had a mixed effect on people's ability to visit Mount Rainier National Park. Hard times kept many people away who could not afford the cost of a trip, even a weekend trip, to the national park. This was reflected in the annual visitation statistics for Mount Rainier, which fell by 25 percent from 1931 to 1932, and by an additional 21 percent from 1932 to 1933. These were the worst years of the Depression. But hard times had an opposite result, too, as widespread unemployment and underemployment gave people more leisure time. After the hardest years of the Depression had passed, annual visitation to Mount Rainier picked up and soon exceeded what it had been in the 1920s. Nationwide, automobile and gasoline sales rebounded after 1933 and resumed their phenomenal growth of the preceding decade. Travel expenditures for the whole country rose during the years 1934 to 1937, dipped slightly during the 1938-39 recession, and rose spectacularly in 1940-41. Reflecting these trends in the national economy, annual visitation to Mount Rainier showed a 71 percent increase over the whole decade (from 265,620 people in 1930 to 456,637 in 1940).

The Depression affected visitors' lodging preferences in Mount Rainier National Park more than it influenced total visitation. Park hotel patronage declined sharply during 1931-33 and remained depressed throughout the era. Meanwhile, campground use increased in both relative and absolute terms. Again, this reflected national trends. According to automobile historian Warren James Belasco, "Tourists economized on operating expenses, mainly room and board, in order to keep cars running. Expenditures for hotels, restaurants, vacation clothing, and travel supplies fell from $872 million in 1929 to $444 million in 1933." [1] Belasco documents how the autocamps and the nascent motel industry grew during the Depression years while the hotel business suffered. The rise of the motel in American life changed visitor demand in Mount Rainier National Park. Tourists who could ill-afford a room in the Paradise Inn wanted to stay in small "housekeeping" cabins, not the tent cabins of yesteryear. The RNPC built hundreds of housekeeping cabins at Paradise and Sunrise to meet this new demand. Other significant changes in visitor use in the 1930s included the advent of winter sports at Paradise and increased summer use of the Sunrise-White River section of the park.

SUMMER RECREATION

There were two broad trends in summer recreational use in the 1930s: a trend toward greater distribution of use among the four corners of the park, and a trend in favor of activities that were self-guiding or free-of-charge. One trend related to new road development, the other to the deepening economic depression.

Road access to all four corners of the park affected visitor distribution. As numbers declined overall, the percentage of visitors going to the less developed sections of the park increased. Visitor use of the Carbon River and Ohanapecosh areas increased relative to the more developed Sunrise and Paradise areas. Visitor use of the Longmire-Paradise area stayed about double that of the Sunrise area.

Park visitors were inclined to be more thrifty and independent than they had been before the Depression. The RNPC's restaurant sales shrank dramatically while use of the park's picnic areas rose. Occupancy rates in the hotels fell more sharply than overall park visitation, and souvenir sales were so depressed that the company did not even open its photograph business in 1933. Fewer visitors availed themselves of the company's guide service, preferring to hike on foot, explore the trails without a guide, or take free nature walks led by park naturalists. [2]

Company officials accepted most of these setbacks with equanimity. They were less gracious about the decline in patronage of the RNPC's commercial guide service. They saw the surge of interest in the NPS 's free educational program--its ranger-led nature walks, evening lectures, museum exhibits, and self-guiding nature trails--and they argued that the ranger-led activities were cutting into their guide business, perhaps interfering with their contractual rights.

Two explanations were given for the growing visitor preference for the NPS guide service over the RNPC guide service. Company officials assumed that it was purely economic: hard times were forcing park visitors to seek out free services wherever they were available. The NPS's free nature walks, lectures, and museums were touted in Seattle and Tacoma newspapers. [3] NPS officials, on the other hand, believed that the trend was independent of the Depression. After all, the educational program was already enjoying great popularity in the 1920s when it was still relatively small. They regarded the growing number of "public contacts" made by the Naturalist Department in the 1930s as a reflection of the organization's growing size, resources, and professionalism. [4] They saw the evolution of the park's educational program as a response to longterm trends in visitor demand.

The NPS did not want to take business away from the RNPC. It supported the company's guide service on principle. The company could ill-afford the loss of guide business in the early 1930s. But the NPS did not want to limit its own educational program on the company's behalf, either. The park administration worked out a cooperative plan with the company in 1931, but the plan was short-lived. Half way through the summer of 1933, the company withdrew from the cooperative program and started providing its own talks at another location. Superintendent Tomlinson responded to this challenge by suspending all naturalists' lectures and all but the shortest ranger-led nature walks. The result was just as he had anticipated: hundreds of visitor complaints provided proof that there was a public demand for "authoritative informational service in the National Park." [5]

Meanwhile, increasing numbers of park visitors availed themselves of neither service and simply struck off on their own. Two self-guiding nature trails, the Trail of the Shadows at Longmire and the Glacier Trail to the terminus of the Nisqually Glacier, were used by tens of thousands of people each summer. Longer trails saw increasing use by people without guides, too. The result was an increasingly varied pattern of summer recreational use. The pattern deserves a closer look.

Paradise

The Paradise meadows and the surrounding area continued to be a focal point for visitors to Mount Rainier. The Skyline Trail, a five-mile loop trail that took in Alta Vista, Glacier Vista, Panorama Point, Timberline Ridge, and Mazama Ridge, remained the most popular horse trail in the park. RNPC trail guides led parties on the half-day ride morning and afternoon. Much of this route lay over melting snowfields until late summer. What the horse traffic must have done to the delicate alpine meadows can only be imagined; damage to the plants and wildflowers from trampling would not be evaluated or monitored until many years later. Other popular horse trips went to the Reflection Lakes and the foot of the Tatoosh Range. The RNPC's guide service offered regular foot trips to Nisqually Glacier, Paradise Glacier, and Pinnacle Peak. The NPS encouraged tourists to get out on the glaciers as long as they were with experienced guides. [6]

A party of CCC boys visiting the Paradise ice caves. (O.A. Tomlinson Collection photo courtesy of University of Washington, Negative No. UW14013)

Many tourists hiked on their own up to the Anvil Rock lookout and the rock shelters at Camp Muir. Tomlinson once remarked that the latter, dating from 1916 and 1921, were "used extensively by amateur climbers and others who hike about aimlessly and improperly equipped for hiking or climbing at that altitude." [7] When a visiting official recommended that the NPS install a telephone line to Camp Muir, Tomlinson noted that "undoubtedly if the telephone was placed in Camp Muir, hundreds of casual hikers who reach that point would keep a telephone line more than busy with idle and unnecessary gossip." [8] Such comments suggest why the NPS favored guided walks in the Paradise area. The high altitude, glaciers, and sheer cliffs in the Paradise area presented a multitude of hazards.

The Paradise ice caves were a popular attraction. It was a unique experience to look up at the blue, green, and pink light filtering into these great rooms under the Paradise Glacier. Due to the rapid melting of the Paradise Glacier, the caves changed from year to year. As the last winter's snowpack melted off each summer, the RNPC's guide service sped the process along by chopping or blasting out openings in the ice large enough for people to enter. Normally this occurred toward the end of the summer, but in 1932 the RNPC requested permission to dynamite a hole in the ice in July, so that this popular attraction could be made available earlier. After some philosophizing about the problem of "forcing nature," Cammerer gave his approval. [9] As Tomlinson pointed out, the ice caves were a good source of revenue to the company's guide department, and with business ailing "the pressure is greater than ever for hastening the opening of the Paradise Ice Caves." [10]

The lingering snowpack around the Paradise area held its own attractions. "Nature coasting" was a popular and much-photographed activity. A popular postcard image of Mount Rainier in the 1920s and 1930s depicted a line of people--usually young women--seated on a steep snowfield one behind the other in stairstep fashion. These were tin-pants sliders, or "nature coasters." [11] Floyd Schmoe described this activity in his reminiscence of his year with the RNPC guide service.

On the usual half-day guide trip [to the Paradise ice caves] we always made a long circle on the glacier and had several slides of two or three hundred feet as well as many shorter ones. On the short steep slopes we sent people down singly with a guide at the bottom to pick them up, but on long gentle slopes we all sat down with each man holding the feet of the one behind him. When all were ready the guide in front would lift his feet and the guide behind would shove off and the entire party would serpentine down the glacier whooping and yelling. It was good sport and no one was ever hurt much. [12]

On August 1, 1931, the RNPC opened a nine-hole golf course at Paradise. [13] This short-lived venture was another attempt to bring the RNPC more business and counter the effects of the Depression. RNPC President H.A. Rhodes put the idea to Director Albright when he inspected the park in 1930. Albright agreed with Rhodes that a golf course might entice local people to stay at the Paradise Inn during the week. He rejected Rhodes's proposal for a miniature "Tom Thumb" golf course. Albright wrote in a memorandum afterwards, "Golf is a country game not a city one. It can be justified in parks easier than tennis. Anyway, I want to try out the thing and as the Rainier Company needs revenue more than any other Company I am disposed to let them try the experiment." He put Tom Vint in charge of its design. [14]

With the completion of the south side road to Reflection Lakes, this area began to attract crowds as never before. In 1934, the NPS authorized construction of a "boat house-comfort station" on the shore of the lake. The building was a small public works project. Boating, fishing, and picnicking on and around the lake became more and more popular. [15] The RNPC guide department offered fishing trips from Paradise to Reflection Lakes with hiking gear, fishing tackle, and boat provided. [16]

Another distinctive tourist attraction during the Depression was the presence of the Civilian Conservation Corps (see Chapter XI). President Roosevelt's "Tree Army" received substantial press coverage, and tourists were curious to see these vaunted young men in action. For most of the CCC's existence, from 1933 to 1942, there were six CCC camps in Mount Rainier National Park, the most accessible one being at Narada Falls. All RNPC busses made the Narada Falls camp a regular stop for tourists enroute to Paradise. Hundreds of private automobiles also stopped at Narada Falls each day during the summer. The waterfall itself drew many onlookers, of course, but it was the camp superintendent's feeling that most people were primarily interested in seeing what a CCC camp looked like. "Owing to the fact that this camp is under constant observation by the public in general," wrote the camp superintendent, "a special attempt has been made by this camp to present a smart appearance." [17]

Camp Narada occupied the level ground on the far side of the stone bridge directly above Narada Falls. Beyond the decorative log entrance to the camp were a handful of permanent buildings consisting of garages, mess hall, wash houses, and tool shops. These were laid out on either side of a short section of abandoned road. Nestled against a wall of trees were the tent quarters of the company officers and men.

Interestingly, the site was selected for a CCC camp over the protests of NPS landscape architects who thought the area ought to be restored to a natural condition. The site had formerly seen use by road crews and seasonal rangers assigned to traffic control. Some effort had been made to clean up the area in the late 1920s with the removal of an unsightly toilet building at the brink of the falls and the clearing of a mass of downed trees from the Paradise River directly above the falls. After the camp's abandonment in 1937, the landscape architects were once again thwarted, as several of the buildings remained standing for equipment storage. [18]

Sunrise

Throngs of tourists drove up the new road to Sunrise after its opening on July 15, 1931. Each succeeding weekend brought more people, and on three weekends during August the travel to Sunrise exceeded that to Paradise. [19] Tomlinson was jubilant, confidently predicting that in the following year, with the expected completion of the road over Chinook Pass, travel to Sunrise would nearly double what Paradise received. That did not happen, however. The pattern of visitor use soon stabilized the other way, with about two times the number visiting Paradise each summer as visited Sunrise.

The Sunrise development confirmed the park's growing orientation to the private automobilist. The most popular attraction in the entire new development in the northeast corner of the park was the Sunrise Point parking area and overlook. As described earlier, this was a carefully designed switchback on the road from White River up to Yakima Park. As the new road gained the crest of Sunrise Ridge, it made a broad, 180-degree turn that provided the automobilist with a panoramic view in all directions. A large parking bay inside the turn and pedestrian bays around its perimeter completed this site's functional design. Hundreds of cars packed into the Sunrise Point parking area each day. At the end of its first season of use Tomlinson wrote approvingly, "Perhaps the fact that this vantage point is on the main highway where the visitor may, from the comfortable seat of his automobile, enjoy all the thrills of the mountain climber, had something to do with its popularity." [20] The park administration was satisfied if most park visitors came only for the pleasure of the road and its scenic views.

There were opportunities for nature study and recreation at Sunrise for all those who would take advantage of them. The NPS improved the trail system around Yakima Park to accommodate the new crowds of people. The most popular walk was the Rim Trail. Within a modest 800 feet of the parking area and ranger station, the visitor could gain an unobstructed view of the massive Emmons Glacier for its whole length from the summit of Mount Rainier to its terminus in the White River Valley below. Other trails followed easy grades up the slope behind the plaza and turned east or west near the crest of Sourdough Mountain, yielding occasional grand views to the north as well as a constant view of Mount Rainier to the southwest. In that era of better air quality, it was possible on a clear day to see northward all the way to the Selkirk Range in British Columbia. Beginning in 1931, a ranger-naturalist was duty-stationed at Sunrise to answer questions, give lectures, and lead nature walks. Longer hikes to Burroughs Mountain and Berkeley Park were also available to the visitor at this time. [21]

Visitors to Sunrise also found a variety of guided trips and amenities provided by the park concession. Regular half-day horse trips could be purchased for $3.00. Small and plain "housekeeping cabins" could be rented for $2.50 per day with blankets and linen, or $1.50 per day without. In the Sunrise Lodge, which first opened in 1931, the visitor could rent bathtub, shower, and laundry facilities; purchase groceries; and enjoy cafeteria-style dining. [22] By 1934, a free public campground and picnic area had been established near Shadow Lake, less than a mile west of the Sunrise plaza. [23]

Backcountry Use

The vast majority of visitors to Mount Rainier in the 1930s did not go very far into the backcountry. If they left the immediate vicinity of their automobiles at all, they generally kept to the popular day trips around Paradise, Longmire, and Sunrise. There were practical reasons for this pattern of recreational use. Few people owned the necessary equipment to go into the backcountry. The park concession outfitted parties and offered guided horse trips around the mountain, but these were beyond the means of most visitors. The company's general manager, Paul Sceva, remarked in 1932 that 99 percent of park visitors never ventured more than a mile from the Paradise and Sunrise areas. [24]

Nevertheless, backcountry use grew into an identifiable activity during the 1930s. Increasing numbers of Americans made a distinction between wild country that could be visited by car and wilderness that was only accessible by foot or horseback. Organizations like the Wilderness Society, founded in 1935, and older mountain clubs such as The Mountaineers, argued forcefully that road development threatened to overwhelm the relatively few remaining areas of countryside that could be reached only by non-mechanized means. The absence of automobile access became the defining quality of American wilderness. The effort by The Mountaineers in 1928 to get the NPS to set aside the northern section of Mount Rainier National Park as an undeveloped, roadless area, or "wilderness area," anticipated a much wider protest in the 1930s against too much road-building in the national parks and national forests. Against this backdrop, backcountry use became more strongly differentiated from other forms of recreation in Mount Rainier National Park than it had been before.

Evolving ideas about wilderness were one significant factor in stimulating more backcountry use. Another factor was that the logistics of backcountry travel in Mount Rainier were becoming easier. In the 1920s, it generally required from twelve to fourteen days to hike the Wonderland Trail around the mountain. In the 1930s, the trip could be accomplished in about eight to ten days. With the completion of the road to Sunrise, backpackers could lighten their loads by first depositing a food cache there or at the Carbon River Ranger Station, or at both places, for resupply as they came around the mountain. [25] Moreover, trail conditions were improved and the route was significantly shortened in a few places. Estimates of the Wonderland Trail's original length varied from 100 to 115 miles; today it is given as 93 miles. [26]

The NPS encouraged greater use of the backcountry. Park naturalists urged visitors to get out onto the hiking trails. As early as 1921, the superintendent had recommended the establishment of four or five "hotel camps" at intervals on the Wonderland Trail in order to facilitate this trip. [27] Although that plan never materialized, the NPS developed a system of free public shelters instead. With the help of the CCC, the number of backcountry shelters proliferated. The trail shelters differed from backcountry patrol cabins in that they were generally three-sided with earthen floors and were intended for public rather than administrative use. [28] By the mid-1930s, there were perhaps a dozen trail shelters in the backcountry, making it possible to spend each night in a shelter while hiking around the mountain. [29]

The RNPC also encouraged the use of the trails. The company advertised guided horse trips around the entire Wonderland Trail as well as shorter trips along segments of the trail. At the beginning of the decade, the company provided an outfit, food, and a guide for $25 per person per day, with discounts for larger parties. In an effort to increase business, the RNPC slashed its rates by one third for 1933 and offered new overnight trips from Sunrise to Mystic Lake and from Paradise to Snow Lake in the Tatoosh Range. General Manager Sceva thought the company had "a golden opportunity because of the financial condition of the country to hold people in the park perhaps longer than before." These initiatives had the full encouragement of the park administration. [30]

The economic hard times contributed to one other form of backcountry use in the 1930s: poaching. In October 1932, two men were arrested for hunting in the park. Owing to the fact that the men had been unemployed for some time, the U.S. commissioner decided to waive their fines. He merely confiscated their guns. Superintendent Tomlinson and Assistant Director Cammerer both concurred with his decision. [31] Naturally there is no reliable record of the amount of poaching in the park, but one could surmise that it increased during the Depression owing to the desperation of many people in the area.

Summit Climbs

After a surge of interest in climbing to the summit of Mount Rainier in the early 1920s, this activity attracted no more than a few hundred people each season. [32] The most popular route was the Gibraltar route, pioneered by Stevens and Van Trump on their historic first ascent in 1870. The route featured a traverse of Gibraltar Rock by way of a long, narrow ledge. In 1936, a section of this ledge avalanched away, making the route impassable, and from that year forward a variety of other south-side routes were used. [33] Still, the basic pattern of the ascent remained the same: climbers departed from Paradise at mid-day and hiked up alpine meadows, scree and snowfields to Camp Muir, at 10,000 feet elevation. Starting out from there a few hours before sunrise, climbers proceeded to the summit before the snow turned soft in the heat of the day, and then retraced the full distance back to Paradise by nightfall.

Most summit climbers were either experienced themselves or accompanied by experienced guides. The few amateurs who tried to climb the mountain on their own, usually without suitable equipment, caused the park administration grave concern. In December 1927, the president of The Mountaineers, Edmond S. Meany, alerted Superintendent Tomlinson to the fact that one Lionel H. Chute planned to take his troop of Boy Scouts on a foolhardy winter ascent of Mount Rainier. Despite the entreaties of both Meany and Seattle Boy Scout Executive Stuart P. Walsh that he cancel the trip, Chute intended to go anyway. Tomlinson wrote to Mather that there was an urgent need for a regulation authorizing the ranger force to prevent visitors from undertaking hazardous stunts like this. Not waiting for a reply, the superintendent advised Chute that all trails to the summit were closed. This action prevented Chute from going and may have saved lives. Before the next summer season, the park had rules for summit climbers. [34]

The climbing rules required all parties to register with the district ranger. Parties which did not have a professional guide or were not affiliated with a recognized mountain club were required to show evidence that they were competent and properly equipped. Required equipment consisted of climbing boots and crampons (or their equivalent), woolen clothing, colored glasses, gloves or mittens, alpen-stock or ice axe, and climbing rope. [35] The rules were strictly enforced, particularly after climbing accidents claimed the lives of two men in 1929 and another man in 1931. Even so, improperly equipped parties sometimes gave rangers the slip. In 1931, rangers spotted through binoculars an unregistered party on the summit dome. Confronting the climbers that afternoon at Camp Muir, they found that the group of five had only one alpen-stock between them and that they were all shod in tennis shoes. [36]

WINTER RECREATION

Winter use of Mount Rainier National Park grew significantly during the 1930s. Most people who visited the park during the winter came either to ski or to watch one of the several ski events held at Paradise; thus, winter use in the 1930s was practically synonymous with skiing. The nature of skiing itself changed in the 1930s, as downhill racing overtook cross-country touring as the most popular form of skiing.

The Developing Sport of Skiing

It was in the 1930s that Americans discovered the European sport of downhill skiing. The first American ski school, with European ski experts providing instruction, opened in New Hampshire in 1929. Three years later, winter sports received a big boost when the third winter Olympics were held in Lake Placid, New York. Two years after that, in 1934, the first rope tow in the United States was installed at Woodstock, Vermont. It was powered by the rear wheel of a jacked-up Model T Ford. Despite some early technical difficulties with this contraption, the idea quickly spread to the West. By the mid-1930s, there were new, rope tow-equipped ski hills from Wilmot Hills, Wisconsin, to Jackson Hole, Wyoming, to Stevens Pass, Washington. [37]

Downhill racing events began to draw spectators and the national media. The First National Downhill Championship was held at Mount Moosilauke, New Hampshire, in 1933. The First U.S. National Downhill and Slalom Championships were held at Paradise, Mount Rainier National Park, in 1935. It was at this event that the American team for the fourth Winter Olympics was selected. In 1937, the first Harriman Cup race was held at the Union Pacific Railroad's new ski resort of Sun Valley, Idaho. [38]

Personalities also contributed to the growing popularity of downhill skiing. Alpine skiing techniques were introduced to American skiers by a flock of prominent German and Austrian skiers who fled Hitler's Germany in the mid to late 1930s. Austrian champion Otto Schniebs attracted ski disciples at Dartmouth. Hannes Schneider, another Austrian, taught skiing in Conway, New Hampshire. Friedl Pfeiffer went to Sun Valley; Sepp Ruschp to Stowe; Luggi Foeger to Yosemite; and Otto Lang to Mount Rainier. [39]

Skiing also grew more commercialized in the 1930s. Clothing and equipment manufacturers moved to exploit the new market. The first two public ski shows, held at Madison Square Garden and Boston Gardens in 1934, drew thousands. Alf Nydin of Seattle founded SKI Magazine, the first magazine devoted to the winter sport, in 1935. The Union Pacific Railroad built the nation's first destination ski resort, replete with chairlift, at Sun Valley the next year. The site was selected by Austrian alpine expert Count Felix Schaffgotsch, who considered and rejected Paradise along with a handful of other western locations. According to SKI Magazine, the Sun Valley development "startled the fledging American ski scene, springing full grown out of an isolated Idaho sheep pasture." For years, Sun Valley reigned supreme as America's single world-class ski resort. [40]

The Development of Skiing at Mount Rainier

Among ski enthusiasts, the Paradise area acquired national renown in the 1930s. For a short time, winter sports loomed so large at Mount Rainier that the superintendent described them as the park's most important public use. [41] Mount Rainier's emergence as a major ski area followed fifteen to twenty years of increasing local use of the park for winter recreation.

The Mountaineers began making annual and well-publicized winter pilgrimages to Paradise Valley in 1912. At first these were by snowshoe. Club member Thor Bisgaard, a Norwegian, led some fellow Mountaineers on the first cross-country ski trip to Paradise Valley probably in the winter of 1915 or 1916. This was the earliest known use of skis in Mount Rainier National Park. A group of NPS officials and RNPC board members who called themselves the SOYPs (an acronym that celebrated their penchant for wearing "socks outside your pants" on hiking trips) began making their own annual winter expeditions to Paradise Valley in 1920. In the course of the decade, the SOYPs gradually exchanged snowshoes for skis. At the same time, they became more and more impressed by the possibility of making Paradise a winter sports area. [42]

Beginning in 1923, the NPS kept the park road open to Longmire while the RNPC provided a variety of snowplay activities, rental equipment, and a lunch service at the National Park Inn. At the end of the decade, the RNPC looked to the expansion of winter sports to justify its new investment in Paradise. The NPS received mounting pressure from local booster clubs and winter sports enthusiasts to plow the road all the way to Paradise. In 1930, the park road was kept open to Canyon Rim and two years later it was plowed as far as Narada Falls. Increasing numbers of winter recreationists drove to the end of the road and skied the last few miles to Paradise. [43]

In April 1934, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer sponsored an event at Paradise that definitely put Mount Rainier on the map of national ski competition. The first annual Silver Skis race featured a five-mile course from Camp Muir to Paradise Valley, with an elevation drop of approximately 5,000 feet. Sixty contestents made the arduous trek from the end of the road up the slope of Mount Rainier, then came racing down before a large crowd of spectators. The route was thought to be one of the most challenging in ski competition. Eight months after the race, in December 1934, the National Ski Association voted to use the lower part of the Silver Skis course for the site of its national championship downhill and slalom ski races, to be held the next spring. [44]

This contest attracted more than the usual amount of interest because it also served as the occasion for the Olympic ski team tryouts. The downhill racecourse started at Sugar Loaf at 8,500 feet elevation and descended past Panorama Point into Edith Creek Basin, near the Paradise Inn. The course had an overall pitch of 33 percent. The slalom course was set up on the uphill side of Alta Vista, a prominence above the Paradise Lodge. Sportscasters from the Columbia Broadcasting System provided live coverage for radio listeners throughout the United States, while three wire services described the event for newspapers. Moving-picture photographers documented the contest for newsreels. An estimated 7,500 spectators drove approximately 2,000 automobiles into the park and hiked up to the Paradise meadows to get a view. Tomlinson had the road plowed a mile above Narada Falls to provide extra parking space. It was the busiest weekend in the park's history up to that time. [45]

Second Thoughts

Ever since Mather had singled out Mount Rainier as one national park with the potential to become a significant winter playground, the park administration had striven to encourage more and more winter use. Tomlinson was sensitive to local ski clubs' demands for better access to Paradise Valley; in his view, the large expense of snow removal was the only significant factor to be weighed against it. He had the road plowed as far as Narada Falls during the winter of 1935-36, and kept it open all the way to Paradise in the winter of 1936-37. Meanwhile, he listened sympathetically to the request of the RNPC's manager, Paul Sceva, that the government build an aerial tram from Narada Falls to Paradise for winter visitors, promising to take the matter up with his superiors. [46]

But Tomlinson also admitted that heavy winter use of the park was creating severe administrative challenges. Problems of winter use ranged from the cost of snow removal to inadequate parking and lodging facilities, treatment of ski injuries, avalanche danger, and public pressure for permanent ski lift and aerial tram fixtures that would mar the landscape during the summer season. Moreover, these difficulties were not limited to the Paradise area. Thousands of skiers began driving to the Cayuse Pass area for a day's worth of recreation, and local ski clubs and civic groups from Enumclaw to Seattle started calling for ski facilities at Sunrise, too. [47]

Although Tomlinson did not necessarily share their views, some NPS officials began to question whether downhill skiing was an appropriate activity in a national park. The skiers' growing emphasis on speed, technique, athletic competition, and urban amenities led some park officials to view them as an unwelcome user group. This was perhaps the most controversial aspect of the problem. It called for a subjective judgment on the kind of experience that downhill skiers typically had in the park. Doubts about the appropriateness of this sport in a national park setting were crucial because they undergirded public debate over seemingly more objective winter-use issues, such as snow removal costs and ski lift development.

Mount Rainier's landscape architect, Ernest A. Davidson, argued that the growing popularity of the park as a downhill ski area was insidious, because skiers, as a group, were pushing for developments that would be injurious to the national park's broader purpose of providing for the public's enjoyment of nature. He tried to define the problem objectively this way:

There is a point where a fine healthy outdoor sport begins to degenerate. This point is reached when the majority of its so-called devotees are more interested in the various side-lines of the sport than they are in the sport itself; when the sport becomes the social thing-to-do, rather than the athletic thing to be done; when the results of participation become physically useless or harmful, rather than physically beneficial. At Mt. Rainier this point is dangerously near. [48]

Davidson suggested that the NPS should not plow the road above Narada Falls, nor provide any rope tow or other mechanical lift at Paradise. Then those skiers who wanted a physical challenge would rightly come to the national park, while those who wanted only the thrill of the downhill runs would go elsewhere.

The problem for Tomlinson was that the differences between downhill and cross-country skiing were still fairly subtle in the 1930s. The value judgments defined by Davidson were not widely recognized even by skiers themselves. An account of a day of skiing at Paradise, written in 1938 by a Tacoma high school student named Ralph A. Spencer, illustrates what a fine line Davidson was attempting to draw at that time. [49] To what class of skier did Spencer belong?

"Skiing is like the measles!" Spencer wrote. "I was exposed about three years ago to the most glorious winter sport there is. The craze quickly spread among my friends, just as it is still spreading over the country." With two friends, Spencer would pile skis on top of the car and leave the city at four in the morning for a day at Paradise. The road trip was itself an adventure, with the first intimate view of Mount Rainier never failing to give him a "choked feeling" in his throat. At Narada Falls, the boys would park the car and shoulder their skis and packsacks for the hike up to Paradise.

As we round the last curve there, lying in full view, with welcome smoke pouring from huge chimneys is the gray, rambling lodge of Paradise. At the entrance to the lodge are literally hundreds of skis, stuck in the snow, with the owners in the lodge, where a crowd is gathered about the huge heater, discussing spills and waxes. After a hasty breakfast in the ultra-modern cafeteria, and following a session in the ski-shack with cans of wax, we are ready for the long climb to the face of Panorama...

With canvas climbers attached to the skis we begin the tedious climb to Panorama, with mighty Tatoosh range at our backs. Over the practice hill and up to the saddle of Alta Vista, our course lies. Far down in the valley, like doll's houses on a vast white sheet are the inn, the Sluskin building, the guide houses and the Tatoosh building.

Up from the front of the Sluskin building to the top of Alta Vista runs the modern ski tow, installed just this year. A continuous revolving rope, the lift is an easy and energy-preserving access to the heights above.

At the base of Panorama the tedious, agonizing grind starts up over the face of the field. At the halfway mark the slight mist of snow has become a wind, and as we round the protected side, a breath-snatching gale hits us square in the face. Biting wind and flying snow sting our visor-protected faces and hoods are put on parkas to shut out the cutting cold...

Goggles are adjusted, harnesses secured, climbers removed, and the long-awaited descent begins. Down the face of Panorama, with a snow-tossing stem turn, we are off With stinging wind taking away your breath, pants whipping in the breeze, the terrain zipping away from under you at a terrifying clip, knees bending in the famed Hannes Schneider-Arlberg crouch.

At last the inn comes into sight, and down the draw of Alta Vista we speed. With a screaming cristie at the door, we stop. It's over--a long time to climb up, a few minutes to speed down...

Did Spencer revel primarily in the physical challenge and the outdoor experience, or the athletic comradery and the thrill of the downhill run? Was he the type of park user who would be glad to see the rope tow removed, or would he then take his skis elsewhere? Spencer's story is significant because it reflects the sport of skiing at a time of transition when it was difficult to evaluate. This ambiguity in the very nature of skiing was the source of the Park Services s indecision over winter use during the 1930s.

By the winter of 1937-38, Paradise was the leading ski resort in the Pacific Northwest. The NPS permitted the installation of a rope tow at Paradise during the winter of 1937-38. Powered by an eight-cylinder Ford engine, the rope tow could haul 250 skiers per hour from the guide house to the saddle of Alta Vista. Enterprising skiers extended the length of the downhill run all the way to Narada Falls, where they caught a company shuttle bus back up to the foot of the rope tow. Floodlights were installed to allow night skiing, and the Paradise Inn rented out rooms through the winter season. The RNPC employed Austrian expert Otto Lang as a ski instructor. Classes were conducted daily throughout the winter. [50]

The park administration balked at other proposed developments. Tomlinson tried unavailingly to persuade officials of the Washington State Highway Department to close the state road up to Cayuse Pass during the winter, arguing that there was too much avalanche danger. The superintendent urged The Mountaineers not to advertise an organized ski outing to the Tipsoo Lakes country, above Cayuse Pass, suggesting that once the area was discovered the NPS would be hard-pressed to develop shelters and sanitary facilities for the winter crowds. [51] When an estimated 34,000 people used the Cayuse Pass area for skiing during the winter of 1937-38, Tomlinson tried to get the Enumclaw Ski Club to provide a ski patrol, but refused to commit any of his own staff to this area. For several seasons in a row, the NPS withstood pressure from the Pacific Northwest Ski Association and various local ski clubs to build a modern ski lift from Paradise to Panorama Point. The NPS permitted the annual Silver Skis competition to take place again in 1936 and 1938-41, but with a minimum of fanfare. The NPS refused all requests to hold additional contests at Paradise, asserting that the fireworks displays and carnival-like atmosphere normally associated with these meets were not appropriate in a national park. [52]

Still another aspect of the ski season that troubled park administrators was the tendency toward "boisterousness and excessive drinking" by young people at Paradise Inn. [53] The superintendent complained to General Manager Sceva that the sale of beer in the fountain room made the Paradise Inn "similar to any common roadside tavern," and he recommended to his superiors in Washington that no alcoholic beverages should be served in the new government-owned ski lodge building that was then nearing completion. Associate Director Arthur E. Demaray approved this request a month before the building opened, in November 1941. [54]

Skiers at Paradise in 1941, the busiest downhill ski season in the park's history. (Photo courtesy of Mount Rainier National Park.)

A Policy in Transition

By the end of this period, park officials were wondering whether the effort to develop a winter season in Mount Rainier had been too successful. Winter use grew faster than anyone anticipated, outpacing the growth in visitor use overall. Winter use, defined for statistical purposes as the number of people who entered the park during the six-month period of November through April, accounted for five percent of the park's total visitation in 1923 (i.e. November 1922 through April 1923) and climbed to thirty-eight percent by 1941. The most rapid growth came at the end of the 1930s.

Yet, if park officials had begun to lean toward a more conservative winter-use policy on the eve of the Second World War, they left it to the next superintendent and NPS director to persuade Washington residents of the need for such a change of direction. At the end of this period, the NPS made two significant concessions to skiers which seemed to confirm Mount Rainier as a major ski area in the minds of local skiers. In 1938, Director Cammerer approved plans for a large dormitory building at Paradise, to be constructed from CCC, PWA, and regular appropriation funds. The tentative plan for this building was to use it for NPS or RNPC employee housing during the summer, and to lease the building at cost to the RNPC for use as a low-rate guest facility during the winter. Known as the Ski Lodge, the building was designed with four main compartments, each with lobby, toilet, shower, and dormitory area. It would accommodate 80 people. The hope was that low-income people, semi-charitable groups, and college and high school students could be accommodated for about 75 cents per person per night. [55] The Ski Lodge was finally completed in December 1941, the same month that the United States entered World War II. As the war years brought a hiatus to winter use of Mount Rainier, the future use of this building was unclear.

The second significant concession to ski groups was Director Newton B. Drury's decision, approved by the Secretary of the Interior on December 12, 1940, to permit the installation of a demountable, T-bar type of ski lift. [56] The T-bar represented an intermediate-sized lift between the rope tow and the chair lift. The plan was to extend the lift well beyond Alta Vista to the foot of Panorama Point. The Pacific Northwest Ski Association had been calling for a chair lift for the past three years. In view of the later controversy over the construction of a permanent chair lift in the park, this was an unfortunate precedent. In June 1941, the RNPC announced that it was not prepared financially to build such a lift, but this only postponed the issue until after World War II. [57]