Campground Presentation in Arizona

Some of you who know me are aware that I am a volunteer ranger at Sunset Crater Volcano National Monument near Flagstaff. What I mostly do is rove the lava trail and talk to the visitors. The past two summers I presented an evening campground program on other volcanic parks and have concocted a new one this year, which might be of interest to some of you if you are traveling in this area. It is titled " The History of Railroads and National Park Lodges. ". It made its debut this sat weekend, with moderate success, and I will be presenting it seven more time on either Friday or Saturday evening until August 11, at the Forest Service campground, Bonito, adjacent to Sunset Crater, or at Pine Grove Campground, about 20 miles south of Flagstaff off Lake Mary Road. I collected photos, with the assistance of one of the ranger staff, off the Internet, and it features Yellowstone, Grand Canyon, the Utah Parks, Yosemite, Oregon Caves, Crater Lake ( the previous two were not served by a railroad, but I like those places ) Mt. Rainier, and the most ambitious promotion by railroads of a National Park, Glacier. ( Included are a couple of knockout shots of the current Empire Builder. ) The talk is about 40 minutes and has 110 photos of trains and the hotels. If anyone traveling in this area might be interested, please private message me and I will provide more information.

I don't know how detailed your presentation was, but Muir Woods National Monument had a history with its own tourist railroad. I know it's not a national park per se, but it was one of the earliest national monuments. I would think that if you were discussing the Utah Parks Company, then the old Cedar Breaks Lodge at Cedar Breaks NM was a point of discussion.

https://www.nps.gov/muwo/learn/historyculture/upload/MtTamMUWOrrIDP.pdf

Yes, I make mention of the now no longer existing lodge at Cedar Breaks, which was Utah Parks Co. a Union Pacific operation.

greatcats said:

Yes, I make mention of the now no longer existing lodge at Cedar Breaks, which was Utah Parks Co. a Union Pacific operation.

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I stayed at a place called "Cedar Breaks Lodge". When I reserved, I wasn't sure if it was somehow related to the original Cedar Breaks Lodge operated by Union Pacific that was removed/demolished in the 70s. I found out it was a modern timeshare complex in Brian Head. It was actually pretty nice, but it was basically a ski resort timeshare, and during summer the town was very quiet. Cedar Breaks NM was great, although there wasn't really that much to do.

I plan to go camp there at Cedar Breaks in the next month.