Planned CA 180 over Kearsarge Pass

[Max Rockatansky]

Time for a highway mystery which I think merits some historic spotlight.  One of the more vexing mysteries of the early Sign State Route era which has always intrigued me is the planned route of CA 180 over Kearsarge Pass.  The original Sign State Route definition of CA 180 announced in the August 1934 California Highways & Public Works shows that it was intended to cross the Sierra Nevada Mountains to an eastern terminus at Independence via Kings Canyon and Kearsarge Pass:

https://archive.org/stream/californiahighwa193436calirich#page/n275/mode/2up

Notably the October 1931 California Highways & Public Works discusses a reconnaissance trip of the South Fork Kings River Basin via Kearsarge Pass, Bullfrog Lake, and Junction Meadow to survey snow courses.  The article elaborates further by stating a cooperative survey between the Division of Highways and Forest Service was in the works to survey a route for a new highway through Sequoia National Forest. 

https://archive.org/details/californiahighwa193031calirich/page/n931/mode/2up?q=Kearsarge

Notably what would become Legislative Route 41 was loosely defined in 1905 according to CAhighways.org which authorized the following:

"locating, surveying, and constructing a public highway from the General Grant National Park in Fresno County, thence E-ly into Kings Canyon..."

During 1909 what would become Legislative Route 41 was updated with the following definition:

"The highway now completely located and surveyed, and partially completed ... from the General Grant National Park to the floor of the Kings River Canyon is hereby made a state highway..."

The 1919 Third State Highway Bond Act authorized funding for construction of the Kings River Canyon State Road.  This definition was updated in 1935 to specify three segments of Legislative Route 41:

-  Legislative Route 5 near Tracy to [LRN 4] near Fresno
-  Legislative Route 4 near Fresno to General Grant National Park
-  General Grant National Park to Kings River Canyon

Interestingly despite CA 180 clearly being intended in it's original definition to reach Independence the definition of Legislative Route 41 was never extended.  This implies that any road from the Kings River Canyon east over Kearsarge Pass to Independence would have been maintained by the Forest Service and Inyo County.  Regardless several early Sign State Route era maps show CA 180 existing from near Kearsarge Pass east via Onion Valley Road to Independence.  CA 180 can be clearly seen on Onion Valley Road along with the planned connecting route over the Sierra Nevada Mountains to the Kings River Canyon on the 1935 Goshua Highway Map of California:

http://cartweb.geography.ua.edu/lizardtech/iserv/calcrgn?cat=North%20America%20and%20United%20States&item=States/California/California1935b.sid&wid=1000&hei=900&props=item(Name,Description),cat(Name,Description)&style=simple/view-dhtml.xsl

The 1937 Goshua Highway Map of California also shows CA 180 on Onion Valley along with it's planned route west to the Kings River Canyon:

https://www.davidrumsey.com/luna/servlet/detail/RUMSEY~8~1~325741~90094662:1937-road-map-of-California?sort=Pub_List_No_InitialSort%2CPub_Date%2CPub_List_No%2CSeries_No&qvq=q:California%20road%201937;sort:Pub_List_No_InitialSort%2CPub_Date%2CPub_List_No%2CSeries_No;lc:RUMSEY~8~1&mi=1&trs=94

On March 4th 1940 General Grant National Park was expanded into what is now Kings Canyon National Park.  The new boundary of Kings Canyon National Park annexed a great deal of Sequoia National Forest north from the boundary of Sequoia National Park towards the planned route of the Piute Pass Highway (planned CA 168).  It seems that the National Park Service didn't have an interest in buildings a Trans-Sierra Highway via the Kings River Watershed or allowing the Piute Pass Highway as both routes more or less faded into obscurity.  The newly expanded Kings Canyon National Park can be seen for the first time on the 1940 Division of Highways State Map:

https://www.davidrumsey.com/luna/servlet/detail/RUMSEY~8~1~239585~5511890:Road-Map-of-the-State-of-California?sort=Pub_List_No_InitialSort%2CPub_Date%2CPub_List_No%2CSeries_No&qvq=q:caltrans%201940;sort:Pub_List_No_InitialSort%2CPub_Date%2CPub_List_No%2CSeries_No;lc:RUMSEY~8~1&mi=0&trs=2

Notably Kearsarge Pass was an established path of travel due to the development of the Kearsarge Mine.  The mining claims in Kearsarge Pass were discovered n the Fall of 1864 when a vein of silver and gold was located which led to the establishment of the Kearsarge Mining District.  Onion Valley Road was constructed as a haul road from nearby Independence to reach the mines of Kearsarge Pass.  An avalanche during 1866 led to the relocation of much of population of Kearsarge Mine to Independence and Kearsarge Station on the Carson & Colorado Railroad.  The Kearsarge Mine operated on a significant scale through the early 1880s and several attempts to redevelop the mining claims ultimately failed. 

[sparker]

Ironically, back in the late '80's when the clearly "pipedream" I-66 "Transcontinental" corridor was being touted -- mostly by interests in Fresno, CA and Wichita, KS -- a Sierra crossing essentially straddling the Sequoia/Kings Canyon park common boundary was floated -- which presumably would have gone under Kearsarge (via a loooooong tunnel!) rather than over the top.  Of course, the idea floated around for a few years, but after 1991's ISTEA, which presented a truncated version that essentially ended in Kansas (partially satisfying half of the original corridor's backers), the idea dissipated, largely due to the environmental issues stemming from not only the Sierra crossing but a traversal of Death Valley, a facility right through Monument Valley (AZ/UT) and replacing US 160 across the Colorado Rockies with a freeway.   But that particular preliminary "planning effort" (more of a PR move) seems to have been the only cross-Sierra concept south of Piute floated after the old SSR 180 Kearsarge routing faded away once Kings Canyon NP was established.     

[Max Rockatansky]

Ironically, back in the late '80's when the clearly "pipedream" I-66 "Transcontinental" corridor was being touted -- mostly by interests in Fresno, CA and Wichita, KS -- a Sierra crossing essentially straddling the Sequoia/Kings Canyon park common boundary was floated -- which presumably would have gone under Kearsarge (via a loooooong tunnel!) rather than over the top.  Of course, the idea floated around for a few years, but after 1991's ISTEA, which presented a truncated version that essentially ended in Kansas (partially satisfying half of the original corridor's backers), the idea dissipated, largely due to the environmental issues stemming from not only the Sierra crossing but a traversal of Death Valley, a facility right through Monument Valley (AZ/UT) and replacing US 160 across the Colorado Rockies with a freeway.   But that particular preliminary "planning effort" (more of a PR move) seems to have been the only cross-Sierra concept south of Piute floated after the old SSR 180 Kearsarge routing faded away once Kings Canyon NP was established.     

I would imagine such a planned route would likely traverse Kaiser Ridge and Florence Lake then head east towards Piute Pass towards Camp Sabrina.  Not that terrain is much better than Kearsarge Pass but I remain unconvinced that the National Forest Service with the "John Muir Wilderness" is the completely unmovable obstacle that so many tout it to be.  At the very least such a route could incorporate the long shelved planned expressway alignment of CA 168 from Clovis to Auberry.  Either way I would imagine that getting a full on Interstate into National Park land would be way harder than any designation of National Forest.

[nexus73]

The name Kearsarge has an interesting naval history.  The first ship to make it famous was a steam/sail warship which sank the CSS Alabama in a battle off the Atlantic coast of France.  The name would then be applied to a pre-dreadnaught battleship in the 1890's.  It was the only battleship in US naval history to not be named after a state.  During WW2, an Essex-class carrier named Kearsarge was under construction.  After the loss of the USS Hornet during the Solomon Islands campaign, the Kearsarge name was pulled with the Hornet name going onto the new carrier.  That carrier is the one which picked up the Apollo 11 astronauts after they splashed down.

So to see a Kearsarge Pass-routed highway never come about almost parallels the history of that ship name.

Rick

[sparker]

Ironically, back in the late '80's when the clearly "pipedream" I-66 "Transcontinental" corridor was being touted -- mostly by interests in Fresno, CA and Wichita, KS -- a Sierra crossing essentially straddling the Sequoia/Kings Canyon park common boundary was floated -- which presumably would have gone under Kearsarge (via a loooooong tunnel!) rather than over the top.  Of course, the idea floated around for a few years, but after 1991's ISTEA, which presented a truncated version that essentially ended in Kansas (partially satisfying half of the original corridor's backers), the idea dissipated, largely due to the environmental issues stemming from not only the Sierra crossing but a traversal of Death Valley, a facility right through Monument Valley (AZ/UT) and replacing US 160 across the Colorado Rockies with a freeway.   But that particular preliminary "planning effort" (more of a PR move) seems to have been the only cross-Sierra concept south of Piute floated after the old SSR 180 Kearsarge routing faded away once Kings Canyon NP was established.     

I would imagine such a planned route would likely traverse Kaiser Ridge and Florence Lake then head east towards Piute Pass towards Camp Sabrina.  Not that terrain is much better than Kearsarge Pass but I remain unconvinced that the National Forest Service with the "John Muir Wilderness" is the completely unmovable obstacle that so many tout it to be.  At the very least such a route could incorporate the long shelved planned expressway alignment of CA 168 from Clovis to Auberry.  Either way I would imagine that getting a full on Interstate into National Park land would be way harder than any designation of National Forest.

Actually, that proposal, dating from late 1988 and early 1989, had their "I-66" essentially overlaying CA 136 and CA 190 through Death Valley before shooting over to Pahrump (guess the promoters wanted a little "recreation") and overlaying NV 160 to I-15.  The plan was for a more or less direct route, which would have obviated anything along the old CA 168 suggested alignment over Piute -- well north of that "beeline".  Of course, anything of the sort would have required a tunnel with a minimum length of 5-6 miles -- just the ventilation system alone would have been a budget-buster!  But the concept had been shelved by 1994 at the latest, so that particular pipedream was dashed in pretty short order.   

[kkt]

Ironically, back in the late '80's when the clearly "pipedream" I-66 "Transcontinental" corridor was being touted -- mostly by interests in Fresno, CA and Wichita, KS -- a Sierra crossing essentially straddling the Sequoia/Kings Canyon park common boundary was floated -- which presumably would have gone under Kearsarge (via a loooooong tunnel!) rather than over the top.  Of course, the idea floated around for a few years, but after 1991's ISTEA, which presented a truncated version that essentially ended in Kansas (partially satisfying half of the original corridor's backers), the idea dissipated, largely due to the environmental issues stemming from not only the Sierra crossing but a traversal of Death Valley, a facility right through Monument Valley (AZ/UT) and replacing US 160 across the Colorado Rockies with a freeway.   But that particular preliminary "planning effort" (more of a PR move) seems to have been the only cross-Sierra concept south of Piute floated after the old SSR 180 Kearsarge routing faded away once Kings Canyon NP was established.     

I would imagine such a planned route would likely traverse Kaiser Ridge and Florence Lake then head east towards Piute Pass towards Camp Sabrina.  Not that terrain is much better than Kearsarge Pass but I remain unconvinced that the National Forest Service with the "John Muir Wilderness" is the completely unmovable obstacle that so many tout it to be.  At the very least such a route could incorporate the long shelved planned expressway alignment of CA 168 from Clovis to Auberry.  Either way I would imagine that getting a full on Interstate into National Park land would be way harder than any designation of National Forest.

Actually, that proposal, dating from late 1988 and early 1989, had their "I-66" essentially overlaying CA 136 and CA 190 through Death Valley before shooting over to Pahrump (guess the promoters wanted a little "recreation") and overlaying NV 160 to I-15.  The plan was for a more or less direct route, which would have obviated anything along the old CA 168 suggested alignment over Piute -- well north of that "beeline".  Of course, anything of the sort would have required a tunnel with a minimum length of 5-6 miles -- just the ventilation system alone would have been a budget-buster!  But the concept had been shelved by 1994 at the latest, so that particular pipedream was dashed in pretty short order.   

It's amazing what can seem like a good idea if Uncle Sugar is paying for 90% of the cost.

[sparker]

Ironically, back in the late '80's when the clearly "pipedream" I-66 "Transcontinental" corridor was being touted -- mostly by interests in Fresno, CA and Wichita, KS -- a Sierra crossing essentially straddling the Sequoia/Kings Canyon park common boundary was floated -- which presumably would have gone under Kearsarge (via a loooooong tunnel!) rather than over the top.  Of course, the idea floated around for a few years, but after 1991's ISTEA, which presented a truncated version that essentially ended in Kansas (partially satisfying half of the original corridor's backers), the idea dissipated, largely due to the environmental issues stemming from not only the Sierra crossing but a traversal of Death Valley, a facility right through Monument Valley (AZ/UT) and replacing US 160 across the Colorado Rockies with a freeway.   But that particular preliminary "planning effort" (more of a PR move) seems to have been the only cross-Sierra concept south of Piute floated after the old SSR 180 Kearsarge routing faded away once Kings Canyon NP was established.     

I would imagine such a planned route would likely traverse Kaiser Ridge and Florence Lake then head east towards Piute Pass towards Camp Sabrina.  Not that terrain is much better than Kearsarge Pass but I remain unconvinced that the National Forest Service with the "John Muir Wilderness" is the completely unmovable obstacle that so many tout it to be.  At the very least such a route could incorporate the long shelved planned expressway alignment of CA 168 from Clovis to Auberry.  Either way I would imagine that getting a full on Interstate into National Park land would be way harder than any designation of National Forest.

Actually, that proposal, dating from late 1988 and early 1989, had their "I-66" essentially overlaying CA 136 and CA 190 through Death Valley before shooting over to Pahrump (guess the promoters wanted a little "recreation") and overlaying NV 160 to I-15.  The plan was for a more or less direct route, which would have obviated anything along the old CA 168 suggested alignment over Piute -- well north of that "beeline".  Of course, anything of the sort would have required a tunnel with a minimum length of 5-6 miles -- just the ventilation system alone would have been a budget-buster!  But the concept had been shelved by 1994 at the latest, so that particular pipedream was dashed in pretty short order.   

It's amazing what can seem like a good idea if Uncle Sugar is paying for 90% of the cost.

Unless a corridor gets "special dispensation", the current post-chargeable federal input maxes out at 80%.  But unlike with the funding "pool" established for the original Interstate system, even that gets eked out from fiscal year to fiscal year and is subject to congressional whim.  But even with that, these days it's not the federal portion that's problematic -- it's cobbling up the remaining 20% from state and local sources.  And this was true even back in the late '80's when the abortive "I-66" transcontinental concept was being floated.  But regional corridor backers often seem to have a set of blinders on when it comes to the realities of projects of that magnitude; they see what it can potentially do for their area and little else, so they tend to go hog-wild with such things as routing, facility design, and conquest of the physical obstacles in their path.  In this case it was a bridge -- or tunnel, pass, desert, mountain range -- you name it -- too far!

[Max Rockatansky]

Paid a visit to Onion Valley Road today:

https://flic.kr/s/aHsmQp1w4i

And to that end, what an awesome road!  The last seven miles west climbing up to Onion Valley in particular is really something pretty damn amazing to see.  The grades are steep but I wouldn't say beyond the capabilities of most normal passenger vehicles with some mindful driving.  It would have been awesome to be able to drive into Kings Canyon, snake up the course of Bubbs Creek to Kearsarge Pass, and make the final descent into Owens Valley via Onion Valley Road. 

[skluth]

Ironically, back in the late '80's when the clearly "pipedream" I-66 "Transcontinental" corridor was being touted -- mostly by interests in Fresno, CA and Wichita, KS -- a Sierra crossing essentially straddling the Sequoia/Kings Canyon park common boundary was floated -- which presumably would have gone under Kearsarge (via a loooooong tunnel!) rather than over the top.  Of course, the idea floated around for a few years, but after 1991's ISTEA, which presented a truncated version that essentially ended in Kansas (partially satisfying half of the original corridor's backers), the idea dissipated, largely due to the environmental issues stemming from not only the Sierra crossing but a traversal of Death Valley, a facility right through Monument Valley (AZ/UT) and replacing US 160 across the Colorado Rockies with a freeway.   But that particular preliminary "planning effort" (more of a PR move) seems to have been the only cross-Sierra concept south of Piute floated after the old SSR 180 Kearsarge routing faded away once Kings Canyon NP was established.     

I would imagine such a planned route would likely traverse Kaiser Ridge and Florence Lake then head east towards Piute Pass towards Camp Sabrina.  Not that terrain is much better than Kearsarge Pass but I remain unconvinced that the National Forest Service with the "John Muir Wilderness" is the completely unmovable obstacle that so many tout it to be.  At the very least such a route could incorporate the long shelved planned expressway alignment of CA 168 from Clovis to Auberry.  Either way I would imagine that getting a full on Interstate into National Park land would be way harder than any designation of National Forest.

Actually, that proposal, dating from late 1988 and early 1989, had their "I-66" essentially overlaying CA 136 and CA 190 through Death Valley before shooting over to Pahrump (guess the promoters wanted a little "recreation") and overlaying NV 160 to I-15.  The plan was for a more or less direct route, which would have obviated anything along the old CA 168 suggested alignment over Piute -- well north of that "beeline".  Of course, anything of the sort would have required a tunnel with a minimum length of 5-6 miles -- just the ventilation system alone would have been a budget-buster!  But the concept had been shelved by 1994 at the latest, so that particular pipedream was dashed in pretty short order.   

It's amazing what can seem like a good idea if Uncle Sugar is paying for 90% of the cost.

Unless a corridor gets "special dispensation", the current post-chargeable federal input maxes out at 80%.  But unlike with the funding "pool" established for the original Interstate system, even that gets eked out from fiscal year to fiscal year and is subject to congressional whim.  But even with that, these days it's not the federal portion that's problematic -- it's cobbling up the remaining 20% from state and local sources.  And this was true even back in the late '80's when the abortive "I-66" transcontinental concept was being floated.  But regional corridor backers often seem to have a set of blinders on when it comes to the realities of projects of that magnitude; they see what it can potentially do for their area and little else, so they tend to go hog-wild with such things as routing, facility design, and conquest of the physical obstacles in their path.  In this case it was a bridge -- or tunnel, pass, desert, mountain range -- you name it -- too far!

Another example of this and still going strong is the I-69 beast. The NAFTA Superhighway included completing the last radial needed out of the Indy hub with a new Ohio River bridge hopefully, Tennessee got a federal boost to their overburdened US 51 expressway and a Memphis beltway, and Texas got a freeway corridor between Texarkana and Houston and a three-pronged monster of an upgrade to their Rio Grande cities. Mississippi did get a connector for their I-22 to I-55, but they and Arkansas didn't get a new Mississippi River bridge in the middle of nowhere. It's not so much a coherent highway as a diagonally connected series of local projects.

[sparker]

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Obviously the various regional backers of I-69 deemed it necessary to fabricate a "national corridor" rather than a discrete series of projects (Indy>Memphis and Brownsville/Laredo>Texarkana/Shreveport) that would have satisfied the needs of each region.  Each corridor might have stood on its own merits and been approved back in '95; but it appears those backers just didn't want to take that chance.  I guess we'll never really know! 

[Max Rockatansky]

I took this photo from near the top of Onion Valley Road looking downward into Owens Valley.  There was a lot of smoke around from the fire in the Golden Trout Wilderness:

0 by Max Rockatansky, on Flickr

And a panoramic version of the same view:

IMG_2975 by Max Rockatansky, on Flickr

[kkt]

Paid a visit to Onion Valley Road today:

https://flic.kr/s/aHsmQp1w4i

And to that end, what an awesome road!  The last seven miles west climbing up to Onion Valley in particular is really something pretty damn amazing to see.  The grades are steep but I wouldn't say beyond the capabilities of most normal passenger vehicles with some mindful driving.  It would have been awesome to be able to drive into Kings Canyon, snake up the course of Bubbs Creek to Kearsarge Pass, and make the final descent into Owens Valley via Onion Valley Road. 

Lovely!  Thank you for taking and posting the photos!

[Max Rockatansky]

Finished the article on Onion Valley Road.  I expounded a lot on the history of the Kearsarge Mine and all the early Sign State Route stuff from up thread:

https://www.gribblenation.org/2020/08/onion-valley-road-former-california.html?m=1

[Max Rockatansky]

It seems that the modernization of Onion Valley Road was part of a FAS project and even made it into a CHPW article circa 1962:

https://archive.org/details/cvol4142alifornia196263hiwacalirich/page/n119/mode/2up?q=Terminus+Reservoir