That section east of the Pinnacles is very nice to have.
I went down the canyon as far as I could. That road closure at the East Entrance occurred in about 1972 or 1973. It wasn’t in the master plan, because the 1968 plan still had the four entrances: north, east, south, and west. The East Entrance got very little travel, but there was a question of staffing it when the planning team was considering the one-way rim drive. How would that fit into the scheme of things? Would the people who wanted to go out the East Entrance would have to go all the way around, or could they go across from the south to the East Entrance? We realized why there was so little travel- it was because the state maintained the little spur road for only about four miles. It was a maintenance headache for them. By closing it they could eliminate that road from maintenance, and it was agreeable with us. I don’t know who initiated that idea, but it was a win-win situation for everyone.
Were they also concerned about elk and potential poaching?
It helped our protection program to by not having to worry about that access. It was a good move and we were glad to see it.
Late in your superintendency you wrote a memorandum about two way travel on Grayback if part of the East Rim Drive were closed.
Okay, that rings a bell!
I was interested because you had corresponded with Francis Lange, the landscape architect (40).
I think he was the guy that made the sign at Vidae Falls.
I met him.
So did. I suspect it was probably a service wide move to try to reduce maintenance of park roads. I remember now we were directed to look at the feasibility of closing the road from Cleetwood Cove to Sun Notch.
Kerr Notch or Sun Notch.
It concerned that whole east side, as I vaguely recall. If we did that, it would be reasonable to convert the Grayback Road into a two way route.
Yes, and an optional loop, if you will. Fortunately we never had to go that way. That’s the last segment where you have to do snow removal. They felt we could reduce our budget quite a bit if we didn’t have to maintain it .
