Craters of the Moon Administrative History

Chapter 9:
DEVELOPMENTS

The Physical Plant:
TRAILS

Compared to road work, trails received little attention. The Park Service catered to the motoring public, and the loop drive was the primary means of getting visitors to the monument's key features. Trails became an important addition to the road system. Along the drive, informal footpaths led to various sites by the time the monument opened in 1924. Early on, the agency decided that a formal trail system was important to enable visitors to experience the landscape more intensively, more safely, and more enjoyably.

In planning, building, and maintaining trails, monument managers concentrated on increasing the ease of travel to the most popular and diverse volcanic sites. After his appointment in 1925, Custodian Paisley established this pattern when he constructed paths to the caves and waterholes. In this manner, Custodian Moore further advanced trail development in the summer of 1928, clearing rocks from the Big Craters and Spatter Cones trails. He also constructed a trail from the Caves Area parking lot to Dew Drop Cave and Indian Tunnel, using cinders to fill cracks, and removing rocks in order "to make a good practicable trail for persons unused to difficult ground." With this intent, Moore built a new trail from Snow Cone to Great Owl Cavern, skirting the slopes of the spatter cone chain to Crystal Pit, Big Sink Waterhole, and ending near the cavern. All of this, Moore stated, eliminated "a number of rambling and confusing trails," making hiking across the rough terrain more attractive--and in the process increasing visitation to these sites. [46]

These developments, however, were "informal" at best, reported Yellowstone National Park Superintendent Roger Toll in 1931. In Toll's view the monument still did not possess enough trails, and in "the absence of trails," he observed, "visitors cannot find the points of interest and are likely to get lost in the maze of lava flows." Construction was simple and economic, he noted; it mostly involved hauling cinders to lay a trail surface, and a budget of $5,000 a year would meet this need. [47]

Although the monument never received this level of funding, two years later the allocations from the emergency work relief programs enabled the Park Service to comply with Toll's suggestions. Planning for trail development, Custodian Albert Bicknell decided that the Caves Area required the most improvement--voicing the reasons of earlier custodians--since only a few tourists ventured across this formidable landscape, in some cases unable to find the caverns in the sea of pahoehoe. Earlier improvements in this area had been attempted with limited success. Prior to Bicknell's arrival, for instance, Custodian LaCombe had hard-surfaced a short section of the trail to Dew Drop Cave and marked the route to the caves with dots of red paint. In December 1933, a Civil Works Administration project developed the trail system in the Caves Area more completely. A new surfaced trail connected Indian Tunnel with Dew Drop, Boy Scout, Beauty and Surprise Caves, while a rough trail extended to Natural Bridge and Last Chance Cave. With completion of the project, Bicknell called the new trails "a great asset." His spirits were especially lifted when he noticed that older visitors were walking comfortably to the caves. "This is very encouraging," he noted, "when we can get the children and the older people out to these points of interest." [48]

Workers, employed by the Civil Works Program,
construct the first formal trail system in the monument to the Caves, December 1933.
(CRMO Archives, File D 30)

Bicknell's words shed light on the Park Service's development mission--the importance of providing suitable access to the monument's prominent features. Another example of this was Custodian McCarty's attempts to have the trail to Great Owl Cavern developed into a road. [49] Constructed in 1934 with Public Works Administration funds, the trail provided access to the cavern for those visitors willing to venture across the rugged terrain, but for many the path was still too rough, depriving them of seeing one of the monument's more interesting sites. [50] Although the road was never built, the trend toward upgrading the trail system continued.

Completed trail through sharp lava to the Caves, ca. 1934.
(CRMO Museum Collection)

By the 1950s, Craters of the Moon sported nine trails. In the northern section of the monument, the trail system reached the Cave Area, Big Crater and Spatter Cones, Great Owl Cavern, the Tree Molds, and North Crater Trails. In the southern end, three undeveloped trails generally paralleled the Great Rift on either side. Their starting point was located at the end of the Broken Top Road and they separated into two main routes at the Watchman. The Old Indian Trail extended south to Vermillion Chasm; the Natural Bridge Trail branched southwest of Fissure Butte; and the Split Butte Trail ran as far south as Sheep Trail Butte. There were also two proposed trails, one from Indian Tunnel to Last Chance Cave, and the other from Echo Crater to Amphitheater Cave. [51]

In subsequent years hard-surfacing trails near the loop drive for better maintenance and hiking formed the next major management emphasis. In 1953 Superintendent Bright began laying the first premix on the Cave Area trails. In addition to surfacing existing trails, Bright also constructed a new hard-surfaced trail to the Devil's Sewer site and four new hard-surfaced trails at the Big Craters-Spatter Cones area. By Mission 66, most of the trail development work was complete, and the monument shifted toward interpretive development. [52]

One of the more important management decisions regarding the further development of trails occurred at this time as well. With the passage of the 1964 Wilderness Act and 1965 wilderness study, monument managers considered the southern region of the Craters of the Moon as "wilderness." In his 1966 master plan, Superintendent Roger Contor confirmed this view when he stated that no trails would be constructed into the southern end in order to maintain the area's wilderness character. Furthermore, due to the presence of numerous game trails and the area's rolling terrain, Contor determined that no formal trails were necessary, and he ended trail maintenance. In this way, the fire road to Echo Crater, which was also the central route used by wilderness hikers, was left to revert to its natural state. The creation of the Craters of the Moon Wilderness in 1970 and subsequent wilderness management plans finalized this policy. [53]

In the 1980s, the monument reversed the development trend and turned more to trails and their role in resource management issues. The 1982 resource management plan, drafted during Superintendent Robert Hentges' tenure, emphasized that no new trails were needed. The monument contained about twelve miles of trails, half of which were paved. Furthermore, the plan discriminated between the type of management for paved and unpaved trails. For example, the surfaced trails existed at volcanic features; therefore, they required maintenance to assist with visitor safety and resource protection. From a resource management perspective, the larger problem was the erosion of fragile volcanic features caused by off-trail use and poorly designed trails. The monument launched corrective trail maintenance and redesign programs in response to resource management issues. Not an entirely new approach, the best example of this policy in action was the Spatter Cones rehabilitation project in the 1980s. [54]

The unpaved trails located in more remote and less visited areas of the monument were hardly maintained. The management trend, again influenced by issues of resource and visitor protection, has been to deemphasize the use of many of these trails. When the monument's wilderness area was established, for example, managers removed the ladder leading into Great Owl Cavern, since it was a modern "intrusion." The intent was also to maintain the site's primitive state. Because the cavern lacked safe access, except through technical means, managers closed the trail in order to keep the casual visitor out. Similarly, trails to Crystal Fissure and Big Sink, and those caves to the east of the developed cave site were not maintained, even though they appeared on certain maps and had some tread and cairns. In a sense, many of these trails were managed as those in the wilderness, left to return to natural conditions. [55]

Expanding this policy in 1987, Superintendent Robert Scott introduced a cyclic maintenance program for trail management. Yet not all unpaved trails in remote regions could be left unmaintained. The Tree Molds Trail fell into a gray area. Considered wilderness, it was not maintained, yet it was a popular, short, and unpaved trail that by the early 1990s had worn and widened considerably. In response, Superintendent Scott reversed earlier policy and placed the trail under cyclic maintenance. [56]

In response to visitor use, in 1991 Craters of the Moon also altered its earlier policy of no trail additions. Superintendent Scott permitted the construction of a short access trail leading from the campground south over a ridge to the North Crater Flow Trail, following the general direction of a common-use trail. This was necessary to prevent further resource impacts and increase visitor safety, since the other alternative was for campers to walk the narrow loop drive. Alternatives for the revision of the trail up Inferno Cone involve similar issues, as does the planned revision of the Devil's Orchard Trail. [57]