National Parks

In honor of the Ken Burns documentary currently on PBS, what is your favorite national Park?  Or which national park had a memorable moment for you?  What do you think of the series so far?

I've been watching some of it, I found that it got a little boring or maybe that was because it was information that I already knew. I've read a lot about the parks over the years and have been to many of them. Probably the 2 places I like the most are Yellowstone and the Tetons, I've been to them over a dozen times and each time have spent a week or so. We always take advantage of the Ranger lead lectures or walks and visit the different exhibits. In Denali we took a early morning Ranger lead bus trip deep into the park and saw a lot of animals, whole herds of reindeer and many grizzly bears to name a few. My most memorable time was when we got caught in an unexpected snow storm on Memorial Day in Yellowstone, we were driving to the Lodge and 3 buffaloes suddenly ran down a slope and ran right in front of us! Another time I was "stalking" through the brush trying to get a better picture of trumpeter swans and when I turned to go back to my car, about 6 elk stood in my way! I was pleased to hear that my nephew visited Yellowstone last year and loved it.

North Cascades National Park,  Mount baker National Forest, Wenatchee National Forest,  were all in my backyard during my Seattle years.  I hiked trails probably every other weekend spring summer fall and winter.  I bagged several named peaks, no frills backcountry camping (hike in - hike out. no wussy car camping), steelhead and salmon fishing.  I had a face to face run-in with a black bear (he ran, I quivered).  Loads and loads of memories hiking the mountains of the north cascades.  Love that area to death.

Well my favorite would be the hometown Congaree National Park, one of the youngest because for most of my life it's been the Congaree National Monument, and now I understand the difference.  We're loving the series and it's prompted a lot of conversations about which ones we'd like to visit next.

We just completed a 39 day, 7,489 mile camper van trip throughout the West and stopped at these places:

Badlands NP
Mt. Rushmore NM
Wind Cave NP (camped nearby Custer SP)
Devil's Tower NM (camped)
Grand Tetons NP
Yellowstone NP (camped)
Mt. Ranier NP (camped)
Mt. St. Helens NM
Oregon Dunes NRA (camped)
Redwood NP (camped)
Yosemite NP (camped)
Death Valley NP
Lake Mead NRA
Zion NP (camped)
Bryce Canyon NP
Staircase Escalante NM
Capitol Reef NP (camped)
Glen Canyon NRA
Natural Bridges NM (camped)
Mesa Verde NP (camped)
Black Canyon of the Gunnison NP (camped)
...and numerous national forests (camped)

Last fall we also covered and camped in Rocky Moutain NP, Arches NP, Canyonlands NP and Grand Canyon NP.

So getting home the day before the series started was very timely. The Ken Burns show is more interesting mainly because of our recent exposure. My only complaint is it seems to be slow and tediously repetitious. Sharper editing could cut the time in half easily.

As for the parks, they are all unique in their ways. Zion is impressive. Capitol Reef is probably the least appreciated gem of the Utah parks. Death Valley is another underrated park and would probably be more popular if it weren't so damn hot. Bryce Canyon is a one trick pony of hoodoos that we took in with one viewing and left (we camped there 11 years ago). For day hiking Glacier NP is our favorite along with Arches. Spending time? Arches, Yellowstone and Yosemite easily. The most mind boggling? Denali by far. Denali's Mt. McKinley humbles any mountain in the lower 48. The most exciting? Watching glaciers calve into the sea up close at Glacier Bay NP.

The parks are under funded. You can see it. Park services are erratically handled by private service companies. Yellowstone was the worst and Mt. Ranier was the best on this trip where we ate.

Klands1,

Last fall an elk herd took over our campground site at Rocky Mountain NP. We walked about 2 miles to see them in a valley and they were there on our return. We could have just stayed at our site. This current trip was interrupted numerous times by bison in the roads at both Custer SP and and Yellowstone. We watched Old Faithful in a pouring rain. We took the Balcony House tour at Mesa Verde with the ranger this year and realized we did the same tour a dozen years ago. It was more interesting back then. It started raining and water poured over the cliff edge like a waterfall.

I'm just 60 miles or so from Crater Lake.
 

Great Smoky Mountains NP--I've hiked all of the Appalachian Trail in the park, had my backpack stolen by a bear, but got it back, sans food. 

When I went looking for my missing pack (she stole it out of the lean-to shelter when day hikers left the gate open so in she went) I found her up a tree. I approached not seeing she had several cubs with her up there. I beat a hasty retreat when she took her big paw and started slowly, deliberatly pounding it on the limb she was on and making a sound like a horse makes when they exhale--a very threatening sound. That's as close I I hope to ever get to a bear again.

 

Bill--I love those old posters.  I don't think they'd advertise 'Government Ranger Naturalists' accompanying you on anything these days, and that makes me sad.

So hard to pick just one.

Yellowstone for all the diversity.

Bryce because it's gorgeous

Grand Teton National Park

I also love Crater Lake.

Nancypalooza


Bill--I love those old posters.  I don't think they'd advertise 'Government Ranger Naturalists' accompanying you on anything these days, and that makes me sad.

The Park Rangers still lead the tours of Cliff House, Balcony House and Long House at Mesa Verde National Park (my favorite National Park because of these tours).  http://www.nps.gov/meve/index.htm

I'm waiting to get home to watch the series in HD on the big screen.  It should be spectacular.  The Ken Burns' pacing may get kind of tedious, but I won't know until I watch it.

My most memorable National Park moment (closer to 300 moments) was when Bobbi and I drove into Rocky Mountain NP from our B&B east of the Rockies on a beautiful September morning.  We had a great day of hiking and enjoying nature.  Sometime in the late afternoon after one last hike that was a bit too far & long, we decided to hop in the rental car and head back over the Continental Divide. 

We had only made it a couple miles when we hit the road closed barricades.  That drizzle we hiked in at lower altitudes was major snowfall at 10,000 feet.  After a long look at the map, we determined the only way back to the B&B was to descend the Western side of the park, drive south through Grandby to Golden, then back north towards the B&B in Lyons.  It was a long miserable drive back in nasty, nasty weather. 

I need to scan some of my old photos and post them.

I am really enjoying the Ken Burns history of the Parks. We are approaching the post-WW II period that I have a some fine childhood memories of still hanging in my aging mind. I look forward to each episode.
Here I am a few years ago exploring my favorite National Park---ZION !! (1947)
 

As you have all come to expect, National Parks are another of my lists. I've been to 240 of the 391 sites.

My favorite NPS Historical Site-Antietam National Battlefield(Maryland)- Still preserved well, moving, you get a sense of place and the magnitude of the battle.
My favorite National Monument- Devil's Tower(Wyoming)- Historical, Cultural, pop cultural and natural significance.

Most unexpected great National Park- Lassen Volcanic National Park.- A gem of a park that is almost completely unknown.

 Most spectacular- Yellowstone(-duh)

mayor al


I am really enjoying the Ken Burns history of the Parks. We are approaching the post-WW II period that I have a some fine childhood memories of still hanging in my aging mind. I look forward to each episode.
Here I am a few years ago exploring my favorite National Park---ZION !! (1947)
 

I see you have put on a couple of pounds since then!----Me too!--in May of 47 i was 8lbs 7oz!

Tiki, 
  Yeah, the years do have a lasting effect on us, don't they?
 
I do have a photo of my father (RIP) playing with me,  sometime before he passed away in 1946, in the Virgin River in Zion N.P. An unintentional deja vous happened when my Mom shot a photo of me playing in the same stream...at the exact same location, with my sons during a 1988 roadtrip.

We were very close to choosing Southern Utah (Cedar City area) for our retirement home. Proximity to the Red Rock area including Zion and Cedar Breaks were one of the prime reasons for considering that area. Family ties outweighed (no pun here) the scenic concerns, so we made Indiana our final choice...but we do love to make extended visits to Utah's "DIXIE" !!

Al, were you born with tiny suspenders on?

My two favorite would be Rocky Mountain National Park, The Great Sand Dunes NP, and Olympic NP. There are many more that I would like to visit. Like all of them, really.

Nancy,  I have never owned ANYTHING "Tiny" in my life !

Back to the topic-  I have visited the Manzanar Internment Site many time during the heat of summer and icy winds of winter. Seeing it again in tonight's episode brought back many memories of the stories of those folks who were imprisoned there.  I am looking forward to the final chapter in this film tomorrow night.

Manzanar and the other camps. What a burr in our history. I visited there with our next door neighbors who had been intered there. What stories they told.

Fresno isn't very far from Yosemite and even closer to Sequoia and Kings Canyon NPs. I spent a lot of time in them as a kid and as an adult. We did a lot of fishing, camping and hiking in those 3 parks as well as the Sierra mtns. in general.

I went to Yellowstone for the 4th of July weekend 1992. It still had a lot of burn damage from a big fire a few years earlier. Great to visit, had to see Old Faithful.

I preferred Grand Tetons, went there the same weekend.

I've been several others of the NPs. They are truly a national treasure. They need to be better funded.

I'm sorry to say that I've only been to a few national parks, primarily the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Starting during my high school years, I've ridden / driven through the Smokies at least a couple of dozen times; the park is simply gorgeous and is one of my favorite places on the planet. I've also been to central Kentucky's Mammoth Cave a number of times; unfortunately my bad hip now limits me to the shortest cave tour in the park, but it's still fun. Back in the early '70s, I made my only trip to Yellowstone, and I would really love to go back; it is truly spectacular. On the way back from Yellowstone, we visited Devil's Tower National Monument, which is quite a sight to behold; by the end of the decade it would be nationally famous thanks to the film Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Many years ago, I worked as a train attendant onboard Amtrak's Empire Builder ( Chicago to Seattle ), and, in western Montana, the train's route runs along the edge of Glacier National Park. I always looked forward to this part of the trip as the mountain scenery is truly gorgeous there; the rest of Montana is as flat as an ironing board.  

I haven't been able to see all the episodes in their in entirety, but I find this Ken Burns' series the best since his Civil War. And on a personal note, PBS might be America's second best idea!

I did manage to watch every episode. As I said earlier, it was very timely for me. Now I am anxious to get on the road again. Hopefully we will head south this coming February, northeast in May and southwest next fall.

Davydd, I don't think I've said this before but I enjoy your trip reports and personality. Keep the reports coming.

mr chips


Davydd, I don't think I've said this before but I enjoy your trip reports and personality. Keep the reports coming.

Right now I am quite overwhelmed after my recent 39 day camping trip out west. I still haven't even loaded my 1,000+ photos onto my computer. I keep thinking about the photos I should have taken but didn't. The drive from Leadville, CO north in a snow storm while the mountain sides were in peak fall color and the mountain peaks getting their first white cover was one. In the mountains you can be in a snow storm with the sun shining all around you. The summer greens were deeply lush from recent rain, the fall Aspen colors lacing ribbon like up the mountainsides were stunning and the new snow capped it all. I should have pulled over and snapped a few but didn't. It was mind boggling beautiful. The whole of western Colorado ought to be a national park in the fall.

Davydd-
I really give you credit for all of these trips you take and this last one sounds incredible.  You are doing what I would love to do when I retire.  When you get a chance, please post some photos.

cavandre--I agree with you about PBS.  Davydd, I am continually haunted by the pictures I didn't get but it doesn't make the ones you did less special.  I am looking forward to whenever you get this trip's shots together.

I finally got my photos loaded onto the computer and was right. I didn't get the spectacular fall color and new snow shots. I was asleep at the wheel I guess or was a bit bare knuckled with the morning commuters out of Leadville bearing down on my rear and tailgating me in those mountain passes. But, there was something else gnawing at me in watching the Ken Burns special and viewing my own photos. It is impossible for photography to capture the true majesty of our national parks. Maybe that is why I yawned my way through the PBS show. It was all too recent for me in comparing the real thing to the show. You really need to get out and travel. The West is truly a marvel but Alaska even more so. Mt. McKinley just cannot be adequately explained in photography. You can't feel the heart pounding wonder of a calving glacier through a lens. Looking straight up at a 1,400 foot waterfall (yes, true) on top of an Alaskan glacier accessible only by helicopter cannot even be adequately photographed to explain its awe. Up close to elk, grizzly bears and moose in real life is way different than watching video.