"In about anything they needed as extra manpower, they always relied on the CCC…. I mean, you can just see the results. I don’t think they would have a lot of things today if they hadn’t had the CCC working on these, you know a lot of this rock cribbing and river work and the trail work and just things like that. They got a lot done. It makes the park…I’ll say."
 

- Fred Brueck, Zion and Bryce National Park Ranger 1934-1941 and Zion National Park Chief Ranger 1953-1973. Interviewed September 18, 1989.

This first week of the New Year is all about a little throwback with national park photos from years past, along with a little trivia. 

Photographer B.F. Loomis captured many images during and after the 1914 and 1915 eruptions of Lassen Peak, and these photos and the unique nature of the volcano and active volcanic landscape around it encouraged Congress to establish Lassen Volcanic National Park on August 9, 1916.

According to the National Park Service, "Due to its exceptional night skies and efforts to mitigate light pollution, Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park was designated as an International Dark Sky Park in 2015."

This week park's photos are all about a little throwback to start the New Year off, with a little bit of trivia included.

How about a little throwback this week of National Park images captured in past years. The year for this image is unknown, but given the vintage make of these vehicles (Model T's?), it looks like the 1930s - 1940s. This is the Lehman Caves Visitor Center and all these cars are parked while their occupants take a tour of Lehman Caves, the longest cave system in the state of Nevada and located in Great Basin National Park.

Happy New Year! How about a little throwback this week of National Park images captured in past years. For the start of this week, here is a colorized post card image of the 1933 ceremony held up at Logan Pass for the dedication of the newly-constructed Going-to-the-Sun Road. This 50-mile (80.5 km) road runs from east to west (or west to east) across Glacier National Park in Montana. At Logan Pass, it crosses over the Continental Divide.

Although all the roads in Lassen Volcanic National Park are closed for the winter, with the exception of a little bit on both north and south ends of the scenic park highway, that doesn't mean getting out and enjoying winter in this national park is not possible. Visitors in the winter will enjoy solitude and no crowds and can sled, snowshoe, and ski over the snow-blanketed landscape.

A visit to Great Basin National Park in Nevada is not complete without hiking the 2.8-mile (4.5 km) Wheeler Bristlecone Trail up 10,000 feet (3,048 m) to see a grove of ancient bristlecone pines, some of which are several thousand years old. Bristlecone pines can be distinguished from other pines such as the limber pine by the "bottle brush" shape of the needles around a branch, some of which extend back as far as a foot or more along the branch.

Because of very strong solar storms, the Aurora Borealis was showing up in national parks further south than usually seen, such as at Mount Rainier National Park in Washington State. The human eye cannot always detect an aurora in dim light and a camera with a very slow shutter speed and a wide aperture often captures what the naked eye does not see.

Nothing says springtime quite like the brilliantly-colored blooms of a cactus at Big Bend National Park in Texas. Depending upon the amount of rain received the previous year, cacti can begin blooming in late March and last through May.