What's your favorite National Park?

Mine are Grand Canyon, Arches, Yosemite, Yellowstone, Coral Reef. Pic of Grand Canyon

 

Have to agree on Phantom Ranch being amazing. The food they serve was good too.

 

If you get into the back country Smoky Mt has a lot to offer. The main roads are too crowded.



North Carolina elk in Cataloochee Valley SMNP


My favorite is Rocky Mt in Northern CO. Been to Yellowstone twice. The geo-thermals are interesting, but it wouldn't be worth the drive to go back.

In 2016 we did a road trip and hit the Grand Canyon, Zion, and Bryce. I didn't care for Bryce and while I'm glad I went to the Grand Canyon I wouldn't go back. Zion I liked. We did a road trip to see Shenandoah a few years ago and it is probably my least favorite. We stayed in Grayson Highlands state park in VA and liked it much better.

Glacier is on my bucket list and my wife says we have to go to Yosemite. Not sure it will be worth the drive, but we'll go someday.

 

I wish i can ride a mule down the grand canyon

 

Yosemite is awesome! i highly recommend it! Just try do to all the popular tourist spot on the week day and the weekend do the hikes outside of the valley

 

Well, after I saw the people getting off of them. I knew that was the last thing I wanted to do.

 

I feel like we talked before LOL, Is yellowstone worth it?

 

LOL, we have. We liked Yellowstone but it was more of we are here lets go to Yellowstone type of experience. We're planning on going back next year with some friends and actually stay in the park.

 

I knew it!! lol, I think ill go next year to yellowStone and hit up glacier national park and maybe a few others!

 

Finally got to go to Grand Canyon and back to Death Valley this year, those are pretty great.

Redwoods, Bryce, Arches and Zion are all stunning places to go. I would venture to say more so than Yosemite mostly because everyone in the bay area treats it as a weekend camping trip and they all end up there and being from the bay, I can safely say we are not good people and I don't want to hang around other people.

Perhaps that's why Death Valley and the Mojave were so appealing this year...

 

AHHH! what trail did you hike? The first time I went we ran into a lot of foreigner that were lost (us too). But we most of our hikes was away from the tourist and we didn't camped in the valley. I'm heading to death valley in Nov before thanks giving. Will be our first time too!

 

So far for me beside the Grand Canyon would be St. Elias national park that has the old Kennicott mine and Glacier in it. Also has more mining sites that I didnt get a chance to explore. We hiked and walked onto a glacier, also explored the Kennicot mine.

 

Traffic on Angel's Landing is terrifying, there were a lot of people up there when we went over Thanksgiving once. One misstep and you're dead, let alone when you have people trying to squeeze by you. I'm surprised you don't hear about more fatalities on that climb TBH

 

Yosemite is incredible if you can get into the backcountry as well...we did a 3 day backcountry hike through Yosemite and it was amazing. But going around the park via the main roads can be annoying with how crowded it gets.

 

Man!!! you should see all the kids running up and down the pathway. I heard next year you have to enter a lottery to hike the trail.

 

Makes sense...it's getting way too crowded and it's just not safe when people are jammed up on that trail.

 

Last time I went, I was a lot younger and not nearly as crowded (ah how I miss the days before the tech boom) and I believe we did the Vernal Falls trail and a few others lost to my memory. If I had to camp in the area, I'd certainly give the Alabama Hills and the back side on 395 a go again mostly because it's still somewhat pristine and visitors to the state generally don't visit it. I've heard some pretty good things about the Hetch Hetchy Valley. At one point before damming it looked just like the Yosemite valley, but again since it's not as well known, people don't go there. I believe there's a wilderness area that you can hike into (no OHV or off roading) and there's good fishing. You just can't swim or boat in the water since it's controlled by the SF water district.

Death Valley and the Mojave should be great around that time of year. I was down there this past April and there were a surprising number of people at both locations, no doubt everyone was trying to see if the superbloom would occur there as well (it did not). Since most of it is pretty spread out, we did end up relying on the truck to get us from place to place. In april at least, we checked out Salt Creek where there are these neat little pup fish. By november, most of them have probably died back and the remaining ones are living in the deeper pools out in the protected sensitive areas. Check out Badwater, Artist's Palette, Devil's Golf Course, Zabriskie Point and a few others I'm failing to name. It's all gorgeous.

 

Speaking of that area, the Mt. Whitney trail/climb is quite a challenge but a really beautiful way to experience that end of the Sierras. My dad and I did it 2 years ago for his 60th birthday. At 14,500 feet the summit of Mt. Whitney is the tallest point in the contiguous US and overlooks Death Valley in the distance which is the lowest point in the contiguous US. Pretty cool to experience.

Gotta train for the elevation though and/or take the right medication...altitude sickness is no joke. We saw someone nearly die from it on the trail when we were there and he got airlifted out via helicopter in a pressure chamber pod

 

I was thinking of hiking Mt Whitney!!! People say you can do it within a day. Maybeeee I should train first.......

 

People do it one day but those people are certifiably insane. You need at least two days. We did it in 2 days and I was in pain for months afterward lol.

I suppose if you train hard and have a lot of experience you could, but it's 22 miles of grueling altitude gain and the higher you get the harder it is to recover from the lack of oxygen.