Densho Digital Archive - Eddie Owada Interview (denshovh-oeddie-01-0024)

<Begin Segment 24>

AL: And what did you retire from? What was your...

EO: From the U.S. Forest Service. I had served for, all together, including my military time which we got credit for as well as camp time, I think I had gotten about close to twenty, twenty-four years, twenty-five years.

AL: What did you do with the Forest Service?

EO: Well, I went in as a forestry tech. I was in charge of recreation for the district that was Summit County. That was something new because they had gotten a brand new reservoir, and I ended up in charge of that. In winter I was a snow ranger because of the fact I skied. A different story all together. But I learned to ski. I was on the professional ski patrol for two winters. I was offered a job as a snow ranger by one of the rangers on the Dillon district which was, at that time it was Jerry Covault. He ended up as a ranger in Montana, working as... I can't remember. In timber or recreation, but what they called the supervisor's office. He was a very good man. But anyway, that's how I got in the Forest Service and did my snow ranger duty at three of the main Summit County ski areas. Those that ski would recognized was Keystone, A Basin which is Arapahoe basin, Copper Mountain. I also covered for a short time over in Breckenridge ski area, but four was too much to take care of.

AL: Did you, did you have a family of your own?

EO: No. I didn't get married yet then.

AL: Oh, it's never too late.

EO: But, anyway, I was in avalanche control.

AL: Uh-huh.

EO: So I met a lot of the people. We did a lot of the avalanche control where we take... back there then we didn't have an Avalauncher with a pneumatic cannon. So we'd take five-pound sticks of seismograph powder, it was, seismograph was, I think, 60 percent powder. Back there then -- which they don't do now, I want to make it clear -- we'd get the fuse made up, get the fuse into our seismograph powder, put it in a backpack. We had an old-fashioned, I had an old-fashioned army pack, one of those kind of A-frame pack, very hard to use, and I remember carrying like ten sticks, about 60 pounds of powder, down on top of, ridge of the slopes where the snow would blow over, cornices build up. And then we would find the spot where we'd have to throw the charges. Pull one out; gave it to our pro-leader there that was Dick Doberstein. He'd pull it, he'd toss it, we'd ski away, get down, cover our ears. Soon as it went off, ski out close to the edge, look, see if the slope slid out or not.