GUADALUPE MOUNTAINS An Administrative History

CHAPTER VI: PLANNING FOR THE PARK--THE 1970S (continued)

Master Planning Process (continued)

Pine Springs Development Concept Plan and the Tramway Study

In 1973, planning began for the Pine Springs area. The area to be considered included Guadalupe Peak, El Capitan, the meadow below Guadalupe Peak, Pine Springs Canyon, the ranch house and associated buildings at Frijole Spring, the ruins of the Pinery, the temporary ranger and information station, a primitive campground, the trailhead for hiking and horse trails into the high country, several historic and prehistoric archeological sites, a number of springs, the Glover property, and the maintenance and residence areas for the Texas highway department.

Planning for Pine Springs took place simultaneously with the development of the Master Plan and a study of the proposed tramway. The tramway study, completed in 1974, recommended utilization of a mechanical system called Skytram (a registered trade name). Skytram was composed of individually powered cars that moved along a fixed cable. Each car had a capacity of 22 persons and would be driven by an operator. The lower terminus of the tram would be a part of the main visitor center at Pine Springs, where visitors would be introduced to the park's resources. The proposed route of Skytram closely followed the walls of Pine Springs Canyon, running north from the visitor center at Pine Springs, then west to a landing in a meadow at an elevation of 8,150 feet. From the meadow, a separate shuttle would carry passengers to the ledge about 500 feet below Guadalupe Peak, at an elevation of 8,675 feet. From there, the peak would be accessible by a foot trail (see Figure 17). Planners estimated that five Skytram cars could deliver 110 persons to the meadow each hour; the shuttle car could deliver 110 persons to the upper terminus each hour. Water would be delivered to the meadow area in specially designed tanks carried by the cars. Sewage would be removed from the meadow landing in a similar manner. Electrical power available at Pine Springs was sufficient to power Skytram and power for facilities at the meadow landing would be generated by solar units. The estimated price for Skytram was $5,400,000. [18]

By early 1975, changing attitudes and concern with reducing park costs caused the Department of the Interior to place an unofficial hold on the tramway project. As a result, park Superintendent Donald Dayton faced a thorny problem. In January, Dayton met with Texas Congressman Richard White, the park's chief advocate in Washington. White was interested in developing a park that could be enjoyed by many of his constituents. In 1975 he had two objectives for the park: one, that legislation for the right-of-way exchange for the McKittrick Canyon access road be pushed through the next session of Congress, and two, that the tramway be constructed. Dayton did not tell White of the unofficial hold on the tramway project, but he indicated the opposition of the Sierra Club to the idea. White told Dayton that he would not support wilderness designation for the park until the tramway was constructed. He refused to support the wilderness plan because he believed the public had been cheated when plans for a ridge road between Guadalupe Mountains and Carlsbad Caverns were abandoned. White argued that he had worked to get the park authorized for the public to enjoy. He asserted that others, who had not been involved in the initial park effort, now were trying to dictate how the park would be used. [19]

Dayton knew that support for wilderness designation by the district's Congressman was essential to its adoption. The planners for the park were caught between the powerful forces of Congressional support and the environmental lobby. In March 1975, Dayton spoke at the National Park Service Regional Advisory Committee meeting in Carlsbad. He told the group, "The tram is controversial; we expect to get considerable opposition. But we feel we don't have much choice if the public wants to see it." [20]

In the summer of 1975 the Park Service adopted an innovative approach to put the question of the development at Pine Springs to the public: a survey of opinions of visitors to Guadalupe Mountains and Carlsbad Caverns. Visitors answered a questionnaire offering six alternatives to future development at Pine Springs. The alternatives included a choice of maintenance of existing temporary facilities and five other choices, all of which involved development of a visitor center, maintenance shop, and employee residences, but offered different forms of transportation into the interior of the park: (1) an aerial tramway, (2) phased development with eventual construction of a tramway, (3) a helicopter shuttle, (4) a shuttle-bus road, (5) horse and foot trails. Exhibits and relief models helped visitors understand and evaluate the alternatives. Park planners hoped that the public opinion survey would provide input from park users, a group not usually represented at public meetings and workshops. Between July 18 and August 17 approximately 7,200 visitors responded to the questionnaire. [21]

At a public meeting held in Carlsbad in November 1975 to discuss the Pine Springs development, park officials revealed the results of the visitor survey: 2,321 visitors chose the alternative offering only foot and horse trail access to the high country; 2,165 chose the tramway alternative; 1,069 chose the shuttle bus alternative; lesser numbers of visitors selected the other three alternatives, with the phased development and helicopter alternatives receiving the least support. At the Carlsbad meeting, 26 speakers were in favor of the tramway while 11 were opposed. [22]

The following day Park Service officials held another public meeting in El Paso. The majority of the 86 persons who attended were not in favor of the tramway. [23]

Apparently, expressions of public opinion at the park and in his district swayed the support of Congressman White for the wilderness designation. In January 1976, while touring his district, he told a group assembled in Van Horn that while he opposed designation of the entire Guadalupe Mountains park as wilderness, he did think delicate ecological parts of the park should be protected, while leaving other areas open to the public. He made no remarks for or against the tramway. [24]

In September 1975 park managers completed the Environmental Assessment for the Pine Springs Development Concept Plan and a year later the plan was approved by the Southwest Regional Office (see Figure 18). The plan for visitor development provided for the possibility of a tramway but did not focus on it, using terminology such as "if and when a tramway . . . is constructed." [25]

According to the Pine Springs Development Concept Plan, the visitor center complex at Pine Springs would cover some five acres. Developments included the visitor center, which would comprise approximately 9,100 square feet, a possible food and sales concession, visitor parking, the temporary primitive campground, a future walk-in campground, and a possible future tramway terminal. The Pinery stage station would be accessible by a trail from the visitor center and would be interpreted. Another trail, simulating the route of the Butterfield stage, would lead from the visitor center to the vicinity of the Frijole ranch house. The springs, military encampment, and Indian sites near the visitor center also would be interpreted [26].

The Frijole ranch house and outbuildings, the nearby springs, and the old schoolhouse would be interpreted as a typical early ranch development. The horse concession would be located between the Frijole site and Highway 62/180. All horse trails would originate there. The meadow, reached by hiking trail, would have a shelter and vault toilets. Horseback and foot trails would lead to Guadalupe Peak. The plan provided for a future drive-in campground of 15 acres if private enterprise did not construct one in the vicinity of Pine Springs. [27]

Development for management in the Pine Springs area included separate maintenance and residence areas for the park service and the highway department on the south side of Highway 62/180. In 1987, Donald Dayton recalled the problems involved in choosing sites for both the visitor center complex and the maintenance and residence buildings. Because park boundaries had been dictated by property ownership lines rather than by the lay of the land, only a small buffer zone existed between the valuable visual resources of the park and its boundaries. The small amount of land available between the park boundary and the escarpment in the vicinity of Pine Springs severely limited the locations available for development. Environmentalists, concerned with maintaining the impact of an unobstructed view of El Capitan and Guadalupe Peak from the highway, lobbied for locating the residence and maintenance areas south of the highway. [28]

The Development Concept Plan also provided for utilities. Water for the entire Pine Springs area would be supplied from a newly drilled well, which was completed in March 1976. Above-ground electrical lines to the Frijole ranch house would be maintained to preserve historical accuracy, but all other electrical and telephone service lines would be underground. A sewage treatment plant would be located east of the Park Service residential area. The total estimated cost for buildings and utilities for Pine Springs was $5,110,000. Planners estimated an additional $2,510,000 as the cost for roads and trails. [29]

Figure 18. Developments approved in 1975 for the Pine Springs area.

The Regional Director approved the Master Plan for Guadalupe Mountains a month after approving the Pine Springs Development Concept Plan. An errata sheet attached to the plan stated that the decision on the tramway had been deferred because of "grave concern on the part of many interested persons, uncertainties of visitor use and demand in the immediate future, much more pressing needs for other facilities, and the current national economic situation." [30] That cryptic sentence summarized all of the opposition to the tramway: the concern of the environmentalists with preserving pristine wilderness, the change of attitudes within the Park Service and the Department of the Interior about what experiences the nation's parks should provide, and Congressional concern with reducing expenditures in the parks.

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