Background
In the 1930’s the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) performed extensive improvements to Saguaro National Park focusing their efforts on the western half of the park to make the park more accessible to daily visitors. The CCC’s improvements consisted of land restoration, erosion control, access roads, and water supply, as well as, creating facilities for park visitors that included campgrounds, overlooks, picnic areas, and new trails. The Cam-boh picnic area was one of the improvements performed by the CCC in the 1930’s. The area is used today as a rest stop and picnic area, as well as, a launching point for equestrian riders, hikers, and mountain bikers. The existing gravel lot is too small for equestrian/horse users due to their large trailers causing the lot to become congested for other users. Additionally, the small size and amount of congestion make it difficult for equestrian users to turn vehicles with trailers around and exit the lot. Currently, the visitors to the park have a limited open dirt lot parking area with a picnic area. Many visitors are forced to park along the busy roadway and have been parking on sensitive natural desert landscape.
The current parking lot footprint is inadequate in size for horse trailers and for the many visitors using the existing dirt parking lot. In the picnic area there is a comfort station, a shade shelter, multiple picnic tables, and a few trail heads that lead into the interior of the park. Boulders were placed along the gravel lot to create a boundary for the parking lot. The vegetation surrounding the Cam-boh picnic area consists of two biotic communities: desert scrub and desert grassland. These biotic communities are consistent throughout the Sonoran Desert encompassing the surrounding regions of the park.
