The Convergence of Agenda and Funding, 1993-2010
Trails quickly returned to their former place at the periphery of management concern when Ladd resumed his post as superintendent of John Day Fossil Beds National Monument. His successor, David Morris, nevertheless continued with outreach efforts by assisting with the establishment of a support group, the Friends of Crater Lake National Park in 1993. It initially attracted 135 members and represented the largest single pool of volunteers that the NPS could call to implement projects.192The next largest group, the Crater Lake Ski Patrol, had been formed a decade earlier and varied between 20 and 30 members.193 Both organizations displayed a liking of the park’s trails early in their existence, perhaps because trails so often play a central role in visitors experiencing a national park. Trail work could generally be accomplished without using heavy equipment and was usually done with unskilled labor under the direction of an experienced ranger or crew leader.
By the end of 1993 staff in the park’s ranger division had once again tried to revive interest in the backcountry by promoting use of the PCT. A wayside exhibit was added at the trail crossing on Highway 62 next to a turnout that summer, serving as something of a precursor to an alternative PCT route that might allow hikers to see Crater Lake while on the trail. Following the motorway put hikers and equestrians two or more miles west of the rim and more than a thousand feet below it, so NPS staff sought to rectify the situation by inadvertently reviving an idea last floated in the master plan draft of October 1970. From the aforementioned trail crossing, the thought in 1993 was to make use of the existing connector and bridle path down to the motorway on Castle Creek. Pedestrians only might then use the Dutton Creek Trail to reach a short connecting part at the top, which put them on the Discovery Point Trail heading west. New construction beyond Discovery Point could then be minimized by using the old Rim Road route to a point north of Hillman Peak, where it descended toward the Devils Backbone to be overtopped by Rim Drive. New tread had to be built for the line to stay above the road to North Junction, where the trail could continue north toward a junction near Grouse Hill and an extant crossing on the North Entrance Road.194
Building 2.5 miles of new trail to connect existing segments of the PCT was completed by the park’s trail crew in conjunction with volunteers from the Friends of Crater Lake National Park in August 1994.195 Only one of the two camps envisioned in the project’s environmental assessment materialized, while its initial designation as the rerouted PCT proved to be ephemeral.196 The NPS realized its goal of providing a trail that offered outstanding vistas of Crater Lake as part of the PCT through route, but the undertaking did not spark completion of either a trails management plan or a plan for the park’s backcountry as the project’s environmental assessment implied.197 Instead, the addition of a 9.3 mile trail segment on the western flank of Mount Mazama could be viewed as another in a series of ad hoc trail projects—as opposed to the product of comprehensive planning for pedestrian circulation in the park, something urged by at least one member of park staff.198
