The National Park Service wants to preserve
everything from vistas to wagon ruts, graves and campsites along
13,000 miles of historic Western trails. A plan completed last fall
provides guidelines for protecting the Oregon, California, Mormon
and Pony Express trails. But saving a trail system that crosses 12
states isn’t easy, says Jere Krakow, superintendent of the Long
Distance Trails Office. From Salt Lake City, he coordinates
preservation efforts among state and federal agencies, private
landowners and historical associations. “It provides some
continuity and consistency between everyone,” he says. Although the
plan’s scope is as broad as the vistas it hopes to preserve, Krakow
says his staff of three can only do so much. Presently his agency
is completing brochures for the Pony Express and California trails,
compiling information for a computer-mapping system, and
negotiating agreements with various agencies to erect auto-tour
route signs along highways. Dave Welch, president of the
Oregon-California Trails Association, is encouraged by the plan and
its call to preserve viewscapes along the trails. However, Welch
would like the plan to be more ambitious. “It doesn’t include many
of the important cut-offs and alternate routes. But we’ll keep
working to get them included.”
You can read the
National Park Service Plan at www.nps.gov/planning/ or call the
Long Distance Trails Office at
801/539-4095.
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Preserving the westward way.
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