Development Concept Plan, Amendment To The General Management Plan, Crater Lake National Park, Mazama Campground/Rim Village Corridor
The Rim Village of Tomorrow
The development concept for the Rim Village will continue traditional uses and activities. Most development along the rim edge will be relocated, and congestion and vehicular movement adjacent to the rim will be reduced. The rim area will become a more natural, though not untrammeled, setting for summer and winter visitors, free of traffic noise and smells. In the winter, the man-made snowbank along the edge will no longer exist, allowing visitors to view the lake in a more natural setting.
The key element in the development concept is the relocation of the parking areas away from the rim. Two day-use parking areas will be constructed with a total capacity of approximately 500 cars and RVs. The main parking area will be located adjacent to the new visitor facilities in the former cabin area. A lower parking area will be adjacent to the main park road and connected by walkways to the upper parking area and visitor facilities. A comfort station could be constructed at the lower parking area. If one is built, the existing rustic comfort station in the Rim Village will, if feasible, be relocated to the lower parking area. These new parking areas will be designed to direct visitors to a central arrival point from which they could choose to visit the interpretive facilities, proceed to the rim to view the lake, or make use of the concessioner services.
The entire area of the rim now occupied by parking areas will be returned to pedestrian use or be restored to more natural conditions. The redevelopment of the rim walkways and the landscape rehabilitation will be based on a study of the historic landscape of the 1930s, re-creating the leisurely environment of that era. The landscape will be designed to handle the crowds of today, with meandering walkways, seating, and gathering areas. Through careful design of the walkways it is hoped that shortcutting, which is highly destructive to the fragile vegetation, will be significantly reduced. In addition, many of the existing picnic area roads will be removed and revegetated or converted to trails, and the community building and four comfort stations will be removed.
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