Snow Peak, Summer 1962

Some of my siblings and I were reminiscing in the last couple of weeks about a hike we and our McClain and Scott aunts, uncles and cousins took in summer 1962, to the top of Snow Peak. Surprisingly, the photo below was the best I could come up with of the group that went on that hike. I hope to find a better one or ones (or a better scan of this one). This is a scan of an ink-jet print of a scan of what I imagine to have been the original negative or slide, somewhat degraded over the years. The result is color shifted with exaggerated contrast. In addition, the scan of the ink jet print created a pattern of faint lines across the photo. All that to say that I apologize for the quality of this image.

Judging from the number of cameras in this photo, one would think there should be a lot of other photos of this trip floating around.

But with that introduction, here is the group…

My brother Art Wright took this photo, so he is behind the camera. But there seem to be some other people missing that I thought I remembered were on this trip. But of the people here, I will embarrass myself by trying to identify everyone I think I can. Suggestions and corrections welcome. (Names will be given as they were at the time the photo was taken.)

In the back row, from left: Beverly Wright, Barney McClain, Lee Scott (crouching), Unidentified #1, Unidentified #2, Florence Wright, Lloyd Wright.

Middle row: The lovebirds Clara Wright and Ted Dyrness (who would be married soon after this trip), Dorothy Wright, holding (I think) Becky Wright, Judy McClain, Janet McClain (not sure), Joyce McClain (sort of in front of Janet)

Front row: Dan Wright, Kathryn Wright, Lloyd Wright (Jr.), Mark Rachel Scott

Notes:

“Unidentified #1” is, I suspect, Betty Scott. But it’s just too dark and noisy to get a recognizable face (for me, anyway).

“Unidentified #2” may be Nancy Scott, but with her face partially blocked, I can’t tell for sure.

I would have sworn that Rachel Mark and Susan Scott were on this trip, but they don’t seem to be in this photo. I also would have thought that Esther, Jill and Jodi McClain would have been on this trip, too, but maybe not.

The group is standing on and around a fire lookout building that is no longer on the peak. As you can see, it was looking a bit dilapidated in 1962. According to Wikipedia, the lookout building in the above photo was constructed in 1923 and substantially remodeled in 1929. Ironically, it was damaged by fire in 1948, caused by the resident fire lookout. It was essentially destroyed by wind during the Columbus Day Storm just a few months after the above photo was taken. A new lookout building was constructed in 1965, and dismantled in 1980.

12 thoughts on “Snow Peak, Summer 1962”

  1. Thank you for this post! I do remember the event slightly. I could not say for sure that all my family was there, but probably so!

    I smiled when I saw the title! I am working on a little putting-pictures-in-a-book project – with a simple storyline about my life – and some about my parents!

    I just finished putting in a picture of a group up on Snow Peak. It supposedly was the first date of my mother and father. And as the story goes, they each told each other that they would never marry!

    Then they had a marriage which lasted 60 years!

  2. Yes, Lloyd, that is the image I was recalling. I now think I took it with slide film but did scan it some years ago. I will continue to seek the original out. It is a nice memory of you all.

  3. Thanks for digging this one up! You win, but Art had a handicap. Next time I go up there I will have to gather all the photos of Snow Peak together and see how much the rocks have changed ;-).

    1. Thanks go to Kathryn. I guess I should have mentioned that in the post. Art printed a set of photos for her, for her 75th birthday, and this one was among them. She was able to come up with it and brought it to me this morning.

      I was surprised to learn that the lookout was up there in the late 1920s/early 1930s when Mom and Dad made so many treks up there, since it doesn’t show up in any of the photos that I recall seeing. I like your idea of comparing those pictures with the present day. Maybe even taking pictures of the same spots and perspectives, if they can be identified. I think it would be particularly interesting to find the spot where that photo of Mom and Dad was taken just a week before their wedding. It seems like kind of a distinctive spot that a person would be able to identify still.

  4. Thanks to all who worked on this “project” of finding The Photograph! Very interesting! Gratefully received!

  5. Thanks for this. I think that is Rachel in the front, not Mark. Not sure what happened to the rest of us? Too little to make the trip, perhaps.

    1. Thank you for the correction, Susan. Now that I look more closely, I see it is Rachel.

      I really thought Mark was on this trip, though, which is why I jumped to the conclusion he was the one next to me.

  6. Yes, that’s me Dorothy is holding, so I guess nobody thought better of taking a toddler along, after all.

    What a great group!

  7. Hi Lloyd! Susan forwarded this to me/us and I loved seeing it. I only have a hazy memory of the trip and have often wondered if it was just my imagination, so nice to have a picture to tell me it was real. I think Unidentified #1 looks more like a male, but I can’t think who. Unidentified #2 is more likely to be mom than Nancy, as in the summer of 1962 Nancy was newly married and living in Indiana. Though it doesn’t really look like mom, either.

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