In all, park crews built a total of approximately 13.5 miles of bridle paths during the seasons of 1930 and 1931 for $4,000. As with other trails, Sager worked with the engineers to approve final locations and any changes needed during construction. NPS engineers Webber and Robertson noted the numerous inspections by the Landscape Division in their completion report and included one photograph of a typical section.100 It showed a trail four feet wide on a moderate grade sloped slightly inward to better expedite drainage. This reflected the use of standardized approaches meant to minimize the need for maintenance or future reconstruction, yet also made a trail better fit into the park setting. Completion of the bridle paths more than doubled the mileage of “standard” trails at Crater Lake, but it also represented the most coherent effort made so far toward bringing about some type of system through interconnection and loops.
The bridle paths were one, albeit small, piece of a larger improvement program in the park, one funded at the unprecedented level of $177,000 in 1930. This funding came in response to the continuing rise in annual visitation (to a record setting 157,000 in 1930 and then 175,000 in 1931), but also the Hoover Administration’s aim to relieve unemployment caused by the onset of the Great Depression. Building infrastructure to support the national parks found favor with President Herbert Hoover and Congress, so NPS budgets received funding for more projects than at any time since the agency’s creation in 1916. Bridle paths had already appeared in several other national parks, with this type of trail tending to emphasize recreational riding over necessarily reaching specific points of interest. The paths at Crater Lake were signed for visitors, but the NPS otherwise did little to promote their use by equestrians. The Great Depression’s onset terminated any plans the park concessionaire might have had to offer horse rentals, so equestrian use was limited to the few who could bring riding animals with them. Hikers occasionally traversed portions of these trails, though with day use visitation increasingly dominant at Crater Lake, their interests tended to center on the rim rather than the largely forested areas traversed by the bridle paths for the time they had available.
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| Map showing the location of bridle trails, 1932. Note the Munson Valley area. National Park Service. The numbers indicate roads. |
