Junior Ranger Review: Tuzigoot National Monument

We visited Tuzigoot in April 2016.

Tuzigoot is a village built by the Sinagua people on top of a hill and close to the Verde river. Sinagua is Spanish (sin agua) meaning "without water" and refers to the way these people managed to survive in this high desert landscape. Tuzigoot was occupied by the same people and at the same time as Montezuma Castle, which is another national monument we've visited. The neat thing archaeologists found here were lots of BIG pots, and you can see them in the visitor center/museum. Tuzigoot has the walls standing so you can see where all the rooms were. The rooms weren't very big, but each one was actually a house for an entire family.They must have spent a lot of time outside.

The junior ranger program here is available for kids as young as 1 year old, which is great if you have little ones. The little kids mainly have to look for things. Do you see a pot? Do you see a wall? Do you see a sign? The answers for the big kids are on the trail signs around the ruin and also in the visitor center/museum exhibits. Nice badge!

Right next to Tuzigoot there is a turnoff on the road with a sign that says Verde River Access. Be sure to take this turn off and take some time to explore the river. There's a gravel parking lot with a porta-potty and a path to the river. It's cool and shady under the cottonwoods ( a nice change from being out in the sun at Tuzigoot) and the water has a shallow area perfect for kids to poke about in. 

You can also hike along the river. It's easy to see why the Sinagua people liked it around here!

Cool and shady under the cottonwood trees.

Junior Ranger Review: Casa Grande Ruins

We visited the Casa Grande Ruins in March 2016.

Casa Grande National Monument in Arizona is conveniently located between Phoenix and Tucson.  It's a great place to check out for a couple of hours. Ancient Sonoran desert people (sometimes called Hohokam) built it 650 years ago. It had 4 floors and the logs used to build the ceilings were hand carried over 50 miles from the nearest forest, because the people had no pack animals or carts. About 600 logs were needed to build it, so that is an amazing amount of work! The current protective roof was built in 1932, which is surprising since it looks so modern. And it has always had owls living in it. Before there were park rangers to protect these amazing ruins, many people too chunks of the ruin and carved their names into it and you can still see the damage today, which is very sad.

Be sure to have the kids look for the secret room on the site. In the museum/visitor center there's also a great touch table that is very interesting for kids. It had rattlesnake skin, cactus boots (which are actually bird nests from inside a saguaro cactus), antlers, cactus skeleton, and other interesting items. The best part about Casa Grande Ruins is that the badges we earned are made out of wood! Beautiful!

Junior Ranger: "It's big! It's huge! It's large! I've never seen anything like the Casa Grande before!"

Mom: "I never realized how complex of a society the people had back then in this area. They had a society with farmers, artists, and rulers--to be able to build this large 4-story structure with materials brought from so far away.  And they figured out what to do with all that caliche they dug up in their fields. That's what they used to make the adobe. It's just like cement and has lasted for 600 years. Geniuses."

Junior Ranger Review: Montezuma Castle

We visited Montezuma Castle in March 2016.

Montezuma Castle in central Arizona is an amazing place. It's easy to see why the Sinagua people wanted to call this little corner home. The cliff curves around two sides, and on the third side is Beaver creek. It is shaded by cottonwood trees and beautiful Arizona sycamore trees with their silvery bark. The cliff had natural holes in it which the people only had to enlarge or build upon.  Sinagua is Spanish (sin agua) meaning "without water" and refers to the way these people managed to survive in this high desert landscape.

Our camera went dead just before our visit, so we didn't take any pictures at the Castle. Here's a video so you can see what it looks like:



The fourth side of this little area is the visitor center/museum, picnic area, and parking lot. You enter through the visitor center.

The junior ranger program here is set up for kids as young as age 1! We have a 2 year old, so we love it when he can easily be included. The little ones are asked to look for things (castle, bird, hole in rock, etc) and a coloring page (so make sure you bring colored pencils or crayons). There is a separate booklet for older kids. They have to find information primarily in the museum area of the visitor center, and also on trail signs outdoors.

And here's the badge:

Junior Ranger: "I liked having our lunch in the picnic area and after it was fun standing on the little berm by the creek and trying to throw sticks into the creek."

Mom: "There was a guy here today playing on a native American wooden flute and it was echoing on the cliffs. It gave us a feeling of the people who lived here. It's amazing to think about the little children that lived here climbing up and down that cliff each day!"

Junior Ranger Review: Joshua Tree National Park

We visited this park in May of 2016.

Joshua Tree National Park in southern California has an amazing landscape. It looks like an alien planet, with Joshua Trees reaching for the sky against a background of desert and huge mounds of enormous boulders.  It's really beautiful!

 Some things to know when you visit this park are that the visitor centers are tiny and two of them (the ones on the west and worth sides) are actually outside the park. So make sure you stop there before you turn and drive to the park entrance, so you can get your passport stamp, extra water, junior ranger booklets, and any souvenirs. You can also buy your park pass there so you can bypass the line at the ranger shack at the entrance. Note that they close at 5pm, and the southern visitor center actually closes at 4pm. Also note that Junior rangers should check out the few exhibits in the visitor center (or a ranger talk) and have a ranger or counter person sign their booklet on p.5 before you leave the visitor center.

Make sure you have lots of water (they recommend a gallon per person) and bring a picnic lunch and snacks. Don't forget the sunblock and hats. It can get really hot. We visited on a cool day, but the desert is so dry we still needed to drink a lot of water. Also make sure you let family or friends know where you are going. THERE IS NO FOOD, WATER, OR CELL PHONE SERVICE IN THE PARK! It's a wild place! And watch out for rattlesnakes; we saw one! They like to hide out under bushes where they are hard to see. This rattlesnake was traveling through the Hidden Valley and paid no attention to the gaggle of tourists who wanted to take his photo.

The western part of the park is the most scenic and has the all the boulders and Joshua trees, so I recommend heading to that area and doing some hiking. We entered at the western end of the park and visited the Hidden Valley trail and the Barker Dam trail which are 1-mile loops. We then drove through the rest of the park (which takes 2 hours!) and exited at the southern exit. The rest of the park is scenic desert landscape but without the boulders, and the joshua trees are few and smaller.

We passed the visitors station after they were closed, so we finished our junior ranger booklets at home and mailed them in. We found this website: http://mojavedesert.net/plants/ very helpful in completing pp. 20-21.

When we got our package back from Joshua Tree park, the kids were very excited to see that in addition to their signed workbooks and badges the park rangers included some paper junior ranger hats and even a children's book about Joshua trees! Wow! Thanks, Park Rangers!

Centennial Badge! Neat!

Junior Ranger says: "Seeing a rattlesnake was the best part. But it was scary!"

Mom says: "It was so beautiful here! Be sure to bring extra water. My kids drank a lot! And watch for rattlesnakes. I kept an eye on my kids and made sure they stayed on the trail and didn't go wandering off into the bushes since snakes like to hide under there. I also told the kids to not go reaching around or under rocks where snakes might be hiding."

California Junior Ranger Programs

California NPS Junior Ranger Programs & State Park Junior Ranger programs

California has some great national parks and monuments, including the famous Yosemite and Death Valley. Here's the full list of California national parks, monuments, and memorials that have junior ranger badges. Click to go right to the junior ranger page. Further down they have been organized by region to help you plan a trip. California also has a state park junior ranger program and Humboldt county has the Redwood Edventures program. Information for those programs is at the bottom of the page.

Alphabetical List:

1. Alcatraz Island
2. Cabrillo National Monument (special centennial badges for 2016!)
3. Cesar Chavez National Memorial
4. Channel Islands National Park
5. Death Valley
6. Devil's Postpile National Monument
7. Eugene O'Neill National Historic Site
8. John Muir National Historic Site
9. Joshua Tree National Park
10. Lassen Volcanic National Park (earns a patch)
11. Lava Beds National Monument
12. Manzanar National Historic Site
13. Marin Headlands
14. Mohave National Preserve
15. Muir Woods National Monument
16. Pinnacles National Park
17. Point Reyes National Seashore
18. Redwood National Park
19. Rosie the Riveter WWII Home Front National Historic Park
20. San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park
21. Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area
22. Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks
23. Whiskeytown National Recreation Area

Organized by Region:

Northern California

• Lassen Volcanic National Park (earns a patch)
• Lava Beds National Monument
• Redwood National Park
• Whiskeytown National Recreation Area

San Francisco Bay Area

• Alcatraz Island
• Eugene O'Neill National Historic Site
• John Muir National Historic Site
• Marin Headlands
• Muir Woods National Monument
• Point Reyes National Seashore
• Rosie the Riveter WWII Home Front National Historic Park
• San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park

Central California

• Cesar Chavez National Memorial
• Death Valley
• Devil's Postpile National Monument
• Manzanar National Historic Site
• Pinnacles National Park
• Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks

Southern California

• Cabrillo National Monument (special centennial badges for 2016!)
• Channel Islands National Park
• Joshua Tree National Park
• Mohave National Preserve
• Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area

California State Park Junior Ranger Programs (Earn a badge and patch):

California State park junior ranger programs are only available during the summer and they are hour-long programs scheduled at certain times of the day. You have to check the events page of the park before you go and make sure you are there on time to attend the program. At the end of the first program kids receive a star badge and a logbook. The ranger stamps the back of the book for each Junior ranger program you attend. For 5 stamps kids get a poster, for 10 stamps, a patch. Initially, one program earned one stamp, but they are now also stamping for every 3 pages completed in the activity book.

Grover Hot Springs State Park
Lake Oroville State Recreation Area
Calaveras Big Trees State Park
Mount Diablo State Park
Del Norte Coast Redwoods State Park
Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Park
Auburn State Recreation Area
D.L. Bliss State Park
Ed Z’Berg Sugar Pine Point State Park
Emerald Bay State Park
Millerton Lake State Recreation Area
Grizzly Creek Redwoods State Park
Humboldt Redwoods State Park
Patrick’s Point State Park
Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park
Richardson Grove State Park
Clear Lake State Park
Baldwin Hills Scenic Overlook
Leo Carrillo State Park
Malibu Creek State Park
Pio Pico State Historic Park
Will Rogers State Historic Park
Angel Island State Park
China Camp State Park
Mount Tamalpais State Park
Samuel P. Taylor State Park
Tomales Bay State Park
California State Mining and Mineral Museum
Hendy Woods State Park
MacKerricher State Park
Russian Gulch State Park
Standish-Hickey State Recreation Area
Van Damme State Park
San Luis Reservoir State Recreation Area
Bodie State Historic Park
Pfeiffer-Big Sur State Park
Bothe-Napa Valley State Park
Donner Memorial State Park
South Yuba River State Park Crystal Cove State Park

Redwood Edventures (earn patches):
Humboldt County offers a special additional program. Kids go on a quest (a scavenger hunt) on a trail in the park. At the end of the trail they can find a final phrase they need to copy down in their brochure.

Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Park
Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park
Redwood National Park
Patrick's Point State Park
Arcata Community Forest
Arcata Marsh and Wildlife Sanctuary
Fort Humboldt State Historic Park
Headwaters Forest Reserve
Humboldt Bay National Wildlife Refuge
Humboldt Redwoods State Park
Richardson Grove State Park
Trinidad Head Coastal Monument
Humboldt Coastal Nature Center
Gray Falls Day Use Area
Grizzly Creek Redwoods State Park
Sequoia Park and Zoo
Fish Lake (closed in winter)
Tish Tang Campground (open summer only)

Junior Ranger Review: Petrified Forest National Park

We visited the Petrified Forest in March 2016.

The Petrified Forest National Park in northern Arizona is in a pretty barren landscape, but there are huge logs of petrified wood, many of which are still lying where they fell, looking like they are still made of wood, even though now they are solid rock. Some of the petrified wood has cracked into chunks where you can see they contain may different beautiful colors of stone and sometimes even an iridescent shimmer. This park is right next to the famous Painted Desert, but we didn't have time to check that out on this trip.

We did the junior ranger program entirely at the the Rainbow Forest Museum and the trail that runs behind it. This museum is the first visitor center you encounter when you enter the park. The museum is small but has some cool exhibits with dinosaur skeletons! The exhibits give you a great idea of the huge ancient forest that was here, deep rivers, and the amazing plants and animals that populated it. There were ferns, conifers, giant crocodile-like reptiles and giant salamander-like amphibians. It's all hard to imagine now, since the area is so dry, empty, and rocky.

The junior ranger booklet is for the most part a scavenger hunt type deal. Kids have to find things in the museum and outside on the trail. The booklet has some coloring parts, so we were glad we brought our colored pencils. It asks you to color the petrified logs with all the colors you see in them. When we finished the ranger gave us the usual petrified forest badges and also junior ranger patches, which was neat.

Junior Ranger: "I thought we were going to a forest. But it was really a desert. That was a surprise!"

Mom: "During their pledge, the ranger made the kids swear to eat their vegetables--ha!"

U.S. Territories Junior Ranger Programs

American Samoa
National Park of American Samoa

Guam
War in the Pacific National Historic Park

Northern Mariana Islands
American Memorial Park

US Virgin Islands
US Virgin Islands National Park
Buck Island Reef National Monument

Puerto Rico
San Juan National Historic Site