Whereas the master plan of 1957 described the park’s trail system as adequate (except for the link between Rim Village and the lakeshore), the narrative of 1964 called for an expansion to both disperse visitor use and provide public access to additional areas.156 However, Superintendent Richard Nelson sent something of a mixed signal to regional NPS officials in February 1965 by deleting a number of trails shown on the master plan that had either been abandoned or never built. He wanted to encourage visitors to use “existing” trails that the NPS chose to maintain, but hedged by retaining four proposed routes: Sentinel Point, Llao Rock, Pumice Point, and a realigned trail to Union Peak. At the close of Mission 66 eighteen months later, the NPS listed 15 trails that comprised its “system” at Crater Lake: Pacific Crest (Oregon Skyline), Duwee Falls (Godfrey Glen) Nature, Garfield Peak, Discovery Point, Watchman, Mount Scott, Sun Notch, Union Peak, Llao Rock, Wizard Island, Fumerole Bay, Castle Crest Nature, Palisade Point, Lake (Cleetwood Cove), and Annie Creek.157
Austerity and a Changing Backcountry, 1967-1980
The Mission 66 years brought about some important additions to park infrastructure, such as the Cleetwood Cove Trail, Steel Circle housing units, and the Mazama Campground. Whether directly or indirectly, these facilities responded to increased visitation at Crater Lake, given how annual attendance in 1966 was double that of 1941, when funding from Depression-era work relief programs concluded. Funding for infrastructure dropped dramatically once Mission 66 ended, however, even with the launch of a new NPS initiative called “Parkscape.” It attempted to draw upon widespread public support for expanding opportunities for outdoor recreation, but while the number of national park units continued to grow throughout the 1970s, NPS appropriations remained flat when adjusted for inflation. Permanent staffing at Crater Lake actually declined, as funding for construction dropped to a trickle of what it had been during Mission 66, but visitation numbers remained strong and peaked at an all-time high of 617,000 in 1977. As with other types of park facilities, the NPS struggled to fund trail maintenance, whose budget nevertheless went from $7,500 in 1965 to $9,200 four years later.158
Consequently, new projects were set on the back burner unless they had minimal costs. Making one of the parking overlooks on East Rim Drive into a nature trail furnished one example of a small project providing new recreational opportunity at virtually no outlay. Opened in 1967, it needed only a trail sign and some plant labels at one of the two parapets completed almost three decades earlier above Grotto Cove. With a virtually level asphalt walkway extending more than 200 feet from the road surface already in place, it represented the park’s first handicapped accessible trail and required no new construction. Within a decade, however, the NPS removed the sign and labels along the walk amid questions whether the labels adequately interpreted plant and animal ecology along the rim.159
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| Visitors at the entrance to the Grotto Cove Trail, 1970s. National Park Service photo. |
