Postwar Changes

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Segments 7-C and 7-C1 (Grotto Cove to Kerr Notch)

Placement of wayside exhibits and other interpretive markers more closely corresponded to the earlier list of stations and substations in these two road segments than elsewhere on Rim Drive. All but two substations located between the Wineglass and Kerr Notch received some type of marker, though in one case (the Grotto Cove Nature Trail) this type of interpretation persisted for only a decade. Established in 1968 to promote handicapped accessibility, the trail made use of small metal photo plaques mounted on posts along a masonry guardrail in order to identify plants along a paved walk originally built as part of the parking overlook. Panels on stone bases appeared at five other points along segments 7-C and 7-C1 during Mission 66, with the only divergence from this type of marker being a wood routed signboard placed near the road loop on Cloudcap.

Funding from Mission 66 also brought about construction of two picnic areas in segment 7-C. One of them, the site near Skell Head, appeared largely as an afterthought in a dense thicket of lodgepole pine and thus received little use in comparison to the other six sites on Rim Drive. Visitors could, by contrast, obtain an impressive view of Mount Scott and the landscape beyond it from the other picnic area. Located just one-tenth of a mile from the Mount Scott trailhead, the name for this picnic area came from the whitebark pines that provided shade for three tables.

Paving of segment 7-C1 (along with 7-D and 7-E) during Mission 66 in some ways represented belated completion of the road construction begun more than twenty-five years earlier. In the interim, the BPR helped the NPS address slides at Anderson Point that periodically closed the roads, which was the most persistent maintenance problem on Rim Drive over the first decade or so of the road's existence. Through a minor change in alignment and measures aimed at slope stabilization, BPR engineers supervised laborers hired by the NPS so as to reduce the incidence of future slides at this location over the summer of 1952. Roughly 100 lineal feet of masonry guardrail replaced an earlier stone barrier along this section the following year in order to complete the project.