Print Friendly

One of the advocates, Clinton Clarke, contacted Superintendent Solinsky in November 1932 with a proposal to extend the John Muir Trail (which connected Yosemite Valley with Mount Whitney in the Sierra Nevada) northward through the Cascade Range to British Columbia, but also the other direction through the Sierra and then southern California.¹²⁰ Clarke’s vision of a well-marked wilderness trail more than 2,000 miles in length gave rise to an organization called the Pacific Crest Trail Conference, which attracted support from the Sierra Club, Mazamas, Mountaineers, YMCA and Boy Scouts through the Western Federation of Outdoor Clubs.¹²¹ The USFS responded to interest in the Oregon portion of the larger trail by issuing a reconnaissance report in 1934, something which went from the Columbia River to a ranger station at Lake of the Woods.¹²²

Drawing for national forest boundary sign on the Pacific Crest Trail, 1938, author’s files.

At that time the Oregon Skyline Trail route through the park consisted entirely of either paved highway or motorways. It began from the north by following a road from Diamond Lake to a point on the North Entrance Road, where a motorway then ran west around Red Cone. It continued south through thick timber with no view of the lake to an intersection of the motorway with the old route up Dutton Creek. The original wagon route had become a bridle trail in 1930 and for a brief time, the NPS referenced it as the “Cascade Divide Trail.”¹²³ This route allowed for viewing the lake at Rim Village and linked it with Park Headquarters, where trail users could pick up mail and supplies from the post office, once the NPS built a short segment from the Rim Campground to Munson Ridge in 1940. A bridle path went to headquarters from there by way of the Sleepy Hollow housing area.¹²⁴From headquarters, the Skyline Trail originally ran south on a bridle path past Annie Spring and then along the highway to Cold Spring. It turned southwest on a motorway from there across Pumice Flat and then toward the park boundary, at a point located somewhat east of Red Blanket Canyon, but near Bald Top and Stuart Falls. This allowed for a connection with some six miles of trail built in 1937 under auspices of the Forest Service, a route extending from the park boundary to Ethel Mountain in the Rogue River National Forest.