Stopping at one of the many pull-offs

Although the Bureau of Public Roads provided the road building expertise, National Park Service landscape architects together with the Bureau’s engineers created the specifications for the road, working to blend the road into the surrounding environment. They insisted that the bridges, retaining walls, and guardrails be made of native materials. Most of the structures along the road used rock excavated from the adjacent mountainsides during construction. Another concern was with construction methods. Contractors were required to use numerous small blasts of explosives, since large blasts would cause more destruction to the landscape. It was even recommended that power shovels are excluded from construction, but since the expense of a road built exclusively with hand labor was too great, they were allowed to be used.