With construction of the new route to Watchman essentially completed in three weeks, trail building activity in 1932 shifted toward improving the linkage between Rim Village and Discovery Point. This project covered a total of 1.5 miles, of which more than half (4,280 feet) consisted of new trail. The staked location worked out between Robertson and Sager kept grades under 12 percent, but did require some benching and other rockwork. They utilized portions of the existing trail, originally constructed when Sparrow served as superintendent, though it was widened to five feet to match the new sections. In all, construction lasted barely three weeks and concluded with oiling the trail.82
Robertson predicted that the Discovery Point Trail might prove to be quite popular, something helped by the fact that the ranger-naturalists in the 1930s promoted use of this route in the day’s waning hours. For a time it became officially known as the “Sunset Trail,” a route where hikers could start at the trailhead located on western end of the promenade and obtain views along the rim that were otherwise screened by trees and topography from the sight of motorists traveling on Rim Drive.83 The section receiving the most use, however, served as a link between Discovery Point (the place where a party of miners in 1853 supposedly “discovered” Crater Lake) and a newly built parking lot below it. Part of the use, at least initially, came from the ranger-naturalists leading car caravans around the rim which stopped there, as they also did at the Watchman Overlook. The actual “observation stations” such as Victor Rock, Discovery Point, and Watchman where the naturalists could give talks, were meant to be reached by trail, though this took time and the Rim Caravan as an educational offering eventually fizzled. It remained alive long enough to give rise to other, more informal, trails leading from points along west Rim Drive. One accessed the top of Devils Backbone from a small parking area, while another went to the top of Merriam Point from the junction of Rim Drive and the North Entrance Road.84
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| Crew building the Watchman Trail, 1931. National Park Service. |
