re: a national parks thread

Friend,

We have visited 31 National Parks. Here are my top ten:

10. Yellowstone
9. North Cascades
8. Rainier
7. Arches
6. Crater Lake
5. Zion
4. Glacier
3. Grand T****s
2. The Grand Canyon (only if including stay at Phantom Ranch)
1. Yosemite

We have not been to any in Hawaii or Alaska, but have a trip planned. I do not understand how Hot Springs in Arkansas is a National Park. It would not be in my top 100 state parks in America. It is a disgrace to the NPS.

Yours,
TulaneLSU

My wife and I have visited 40 of them since 2017. After she completed chemo we decided to make visiting them a priority.

Hard to beat Sequoia and Redwoods, but Glacier- Going to the Sun Road was unforgettable!

Now, I live less than three hours from Yellowstone and Grand Teton. I’ve only lived here since August of last year and have visited Yellowstone three times and Grand Teton twice. Can’t wait until some free time this May and June to go back hiking and animal watching!

Congress Trail is a great hike. Be sure to visit Kings Canyon NP also while there.

Like a previous poster said, don’t miss out on King’s Canyon. It’s too close to pass up.

Other than those being in California with extremely high gas prices, I’d go back tomorrow. I can’t think of anything that sticks out for you to avoid.

Just take in the immensity of those trees. It is truly awe inspiring! I’ll never forget it.

Took our kids to Sequoia fall break before last.

We started at General Sherman > Congress Trail > Circle Meadow Loop. Got to Sherman at probably 8:30 and had very little crowds. By the time we finished and walked out at Sherman, it was slammed so get there early enough.

Takopah Falls hike is great. Highly recommend. Sunset Rock is a nice hike. Not real long.

Grant Grove area has some nice hikes too. Little Baldy is nice. The drive into Kings Canyon as fantastic.

This past week I got to
Grand Canyon
Canyon Lands
Monument Valley
Arches
Black Canyon
Sand Dunes
and a few state parks and monuments.
Just left Los Alamos.
Of all them Canyon Lands is the one I want to go back and explore solo.
Going to take the 4x4 in April or May and take some of the trails.


I've been to many other parks but this was the most in one trip.

Black Canyon was impressive but if you're not hiking you can do the entire south rim and most view points in under an hour.
It's a neat park. I bet that hike down is incredible.
I don't know if i would go out the way for it.
But it's kinda on the way from Moab to southern Colorado.
I wanted to like sand dunes. It was incredible. But you walk like a mile too the dunes. Then climbing up takes so long. That after you slide down you're ready to leave.
Still both the above are worth seeing. Just not as grand as Nesa Verde and Rocky Mountains.


I think my favorite may be Yellowstone. It's so big I've been twice and barely seen the park.

Also I need to check out north rim grand canyon.
This time at least I went to desert view. Usually we just hang in the village and do some hikes.

18

Acadia National Park my favorite along with RMNP in CO and Sequoia in CA

We've done 8 in the last 15 months of so:

Mt Rainier
Crater Lake
Olympic
Lassen Volcanic
Great Smokies
Rocky Mountain
Yellowstone
Tetons

Counting precious visits past a year ago:
Acadia
New River Gorge (shouldn't be a NP in my opinion)
Arches
Arch in STL (also shouldn't be a NP...)

Personal favorites- Mt Rainier, Tetons, Yellowstone
Biggest disappointment was probably Smokies but that wasn't a surprise after visiting the others .
One we were most surprised by was Olympic. Quinault Lodge/Hoh Rainforest/Kalaloch beach tide pooling was amazing, but I still like my big mountains.

I spent a summer in college next to RMNP in Granby, CO so that one will always be great to me but it has good/better competition.