Just as grading work on the new trail to Crater Lake began in July 1958, the park’s Mission 66 development schedule listed it and three other trail projects as priorities. Projected funding for the route to Cleetwood Cove included paving, so the initial request amounted to more than four times larger than the other three trail projects combined. The three would have reconstructed the Garfield Peak and Discovery Point trails, finished the route to Union Peak, and built the realigned trail on the south side of Watchman.145 NPS crews completed work on the Garfield Peak and Discovery Point reconstructions by September, but did not undertake the other two projects. Instead, the Cleetwood project required several seasons. Rough grading took place by hand until a small tractor with bulldozer arrived from Lake Mead National Recreation Area. This “trail cat” expedited work, though the NPS crew soon found that a steep switchback near the bottom needed to be eliminated from the located line. The rocks encountered on that section slowed further progress, as did building stone retaining walls for the shorter switchbacks situated above it.146
Grading the Cleetwood Cove Trail continued in 1959, but a number of tasks were deferred to the following summer when phase 1 of the project finished in August. The initial stage produced a trail six feet wide on what could be characterized as an easy grade (in comparison with the Crater Wall Trail) apart from a few sections. Except for a minor location change aimed at eliminating the aforementioned switchback at the bottom, some steep sections needed to be re-graded and then surfaced. Plans also called for enlarging the terminus at the shore, while the installation of both rock and treated wood cribbing was ongoing.147 Although visitor and concession use of the trail began during the 1959 season, construction activity did not conclude until September 1962, when the cumulative total spent on the project had reached almost $60,000.148
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| Cribbing on the Cleetwood Cove Trail. National Park Service photo. |
While NPS planners made reference to a system of self-guiding trails at Crater Lake in 1957, this consisted only of plant labels placed along a loop in the Castle Crest Garden and some sprinkled along the Discovery Point and Garfield Peak routes.149 A precedent for describing geological features, trees, flowers, and birds through a bulletin called “Trailside Notes” had been established along the Crater Wall Trail in 1929, but another three decades elapsed before another such booklet appeared in the park.150 Initially mimeographed when released in August 1960, the “Castle Crest Nature Trail” booklet interpreted 29 stations marked by numbered posts. It followed from rebuilding the trail, a project that also included placement of a new footbridge along the route.151
