A Holding Pattern, 1981-1992
Changes in Crater Lake’s backcountry, though often slow in coming, reflected larger trends felt in other national parks during the late 1970s. One was the emergence of a political constituency for wilderness preservation, something that translated into legislation and ended the use of vehicles on motorways in the backcountry, even if formal designation of the park’s backcountry as wilderness remained on hold after the NPS submitted a recommendation to the President in 1974. Another was the advent of funding specifically for resource management projects, like those which addressed the impact of dispersed camping in backcountry areas.182 Although trails at Crater Lake had never been addressed in a systematic way other than as an adjunct to roads on the park’s master plan from the 1930s to the early 1950s, key NPS staff members of the time were predisposed toward trails in the midst of other competing priorities. Superintendents Frank Betts and James Rouse had extensive backcountry experience in previous assignments, though Chief Ranger Dan Sholly was perhaps more important in staffing a trail crew and seasonal positions in resource management. Mark Forbes, formerly a wildlife ranger, had been hired as the park’s first resource management specialist in 1978—a position intended to centralize the natural resource management function instead of it being divided among park rangers as a collateral duty to law enforcement.183
Sholly departed Crater Lake in 1981, just as the park expanded by 22,000 acres, all of it transferred from adjacent national forests. Despite much of the acreage being roadless, it contained only one short trail segment in active use.184 The one to Boundary Springs followed the Rogue River from a road crossing near Lake West, and was built after the Forest Service designated 300 acres adjacent to the park boundary as a scenic area in 1970.185 It came about as part of a USFS plan to construct the larger Rogue River Trail along a route through the Prospect Ranger District. This resulted in just over a mile of new trail between Boundary Springs and the road crossing, about half of which was absorbed into the expanded park.186
