As Powerful as a Volcano

Sunset Crater nearly did not survive the movies. In 1928 a Hollywood company planned to dynamite its flank to fake an avalanche for a Zane Grey film, until Harold Colton of the Museum of Northern Arizona rallied opposition; the outcry led President Hoover to make the crater a national monument in 1930. The soft cinder scars easily and heals slowly — a climbing trail worn two feet wide had gouged the cone sixty feet across before it was closed in 1973. Outside the park, other cinder cones are still hauled away by the truckload.

What the plaque says

As Powerful as a Volcano. Cinder cones erode easily and scars are slow to heal. In 1973, Sunset Crater was closed to climbing when 2-foot-wide trails eroded to 60-foot-wide swaths. Tons of cinder were shoveled back up the cone to fill hip-deep trenches. Notice the scars still visible today. Plants will eventually return to areas where cinders are left undisturbed. Walking in barren areas dislodges soil particles forming between the cinders. Give plants a chance; stay on the trail. What if Flagstaff residents hadn't stopped a movie company from dynamiting Sunset Crater in 1928? What if it wasn't protected today? Outside the park, other cinder cones are dismantled for building and landscaping materials. Human activities can level a mountain almost as fast as nature can create one.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Sunset Crater Volcano — 0.7 mi
  The volcano northern Arizona watched erupt, around 1085
• San Francisco Peaks — 9.2 mi
  The sacred mountain of the west — 12,633 feet, and a live argument
• Walnut Canyon National Monument — 13 mi
  Sinagua cliff dwellings in the limestone — the Hisatsinom
• Flagstaff — 14 mi
  The ponderosa town where they found Pluto and saved the dark

More markers nearby

• Life and Landscape Transformed — steps away
• The Power to Symbolize — steps away
• Changes to Come — steps away
• The Birth of a Mountain — steps away