The United States Army Corps of Engineers began building a road from the end of the Palo Colorado Canyon road in 1950 from a location known as "The Hoist" to Bottcher's Gap (), the site of former homesteader John Bottcher's cabin in 1885–86. The road leaving Bottcher's Gap traverses extremely steep terrain, necessitating four narrow switchbacks. The road reached the Little Sur River in the vicinity of the camp in the summer of 1951. The council turned over the road from The Hoist to Bottcher's Gap to Monterey County in 1958. In 1963, the Council Executive estimated that buying the land at that time would cost the council over $1 million, or nearly $ in today's dollars.