S&D: national parks, etc.

One could argue that helicopters aren't as bad as hikers crawling all over it, dropping litter, having to be rescued....

excellent, the place is massive, let the choppers rim the north, then everyone's happy.

/gentle Ben Episode

I'm not throwing up my hands. I'm arguing for priorities.

The Forest of Bowland (in Lancashire, east of Preston and west of Clitheroe) has almost no trees at all, apparently. I think 'forest' originally just meant 'wilderness', without the implied woods.

I love the way the New Forest is New because it's only 950 years old.

Bryce Canyon
Mesa Verde
Monument Valley
Petrified Forest
?

Any other suggestions, in the general vicinity? (Going to the Grand Canyon, of course) Thanks!

There are many other places in the Southwest on the level of Bryce that would be more interesting than the others. How long do you have and what will your route be like?

http://www.americansouthwest.net/utah/goblin_valley/state_park.html

Mesa Verde is fun, but really it's half a day's worth of touring around, full day if you do Cliff house and the other big one-- can't remember it's name. Take the hike to the petroglyphs, it takes some time but it's worth it. Don't worry, you'll know them when you see them (we spent all this time wondering if we had inadvertently walked past them). If you have to drive back up towards the Canyonlands from there, a side trip to Telluride is scenic as hell too.

Glyphs:
http://mediaservice.photoisland.com/auction/Mar/2004336487288637573215.jpg
Telluride:
http://mediaservice.photoisland.com/auction/Mar/2004338562776854577735.jpg

http://www.terrachroma-inc.com/images/desert/petroglyphs.jpg

http://mediaservice.photoisland.com/auction/Mar/2004333894074221023597.jpg

However, if I were you, my route would skip Mesa Verde (you can see similar, perhaps more impressive, things without going that far afield) and the Petrified Forest (same), unless you really wanted to go to Four Corners (why?), cross the Hopi reservation (I'd be quite interested in this, but you said you were more interested in nature than culture) or see Canyon de Chelly and the bigger tribal cities of the Navajo Res (beautiful, but not like Utah, and again more culture than nature).

I would also skip Vegas and Hoover Dam, but then again I have pretty much zero interest in those places. For me, it would be worth it only if you want to go to the Lower Grand Canyon sections of the Hualapai or Havasupai Indian Reservations (which would take more time than you have to really experience, I think) and/or drive a small section of AZ Route 66 (and I have no idea how interesting that section is). The better route is to the North of the Canyon through Page.

Can you really do all this in ten days?

I'll propose an alternate route within the next few days.

I liked Mesa Verde, especially seeing the cliff dwellings up close--and being so high up that we could see the snow on the Rockies and turning around in the opposite direction, Shiprock in New Mexico. I also loved staying in Moab and driving around Arches and vicinity. I got interested in Route 66 when I was a kid, so driving the longest single preserved stretch in AZ was quite exciting for me, although after you go through Seligman (worth a stop if you're even slightly into kitsch value, and there is a diner there with excellent chicken-fried steak) there's not much else to really *see* in a tour type way. One place I'd also recommend looking into: the 'ghost town' of Oatman--not really a ghost town, but it's along a smaller stretch of the old highway and another amazing drive through desert/mountains there and out. It's famous for roaming semi-wild packs of burros, and the girls that gave it its name, and has the original old west-style buildings and sidewalks in place.

I could go on with further recommendations since it was the trip of a lifetime for me, but to save space I'll also recommend a book: 'Roadtrip USA: California and the southwest' by Jamie Jensen--clued me into a lot of stuff off the main tourist drags and some excellent stops and small but beautiful highways. For your purposes, probably best for AZ and route 66 and Nevada stuff.

Yeah, it costs like $12, which is a bit much compared with other sights, but I liked it. The museum is quite good (kinda with a "hands-on" children's museum vibe), and apparently there's a tour, but we arrived too late for that. No big surprises there ("Yep, that's a big hole..."), but I'd recommend it. (A "gee whiz" fact: the meteor was probably only 150 feet across, but the crater it made was 4000 feet across and 700 feet deep. Gee whiz!!)

First, why do I want to go here instead of, say, Glacier NP, or Bryce/Zion/Escalante, or the Sierras? Are the scale and diversity and colors of Yellowstone enough to justify a trip? I'm not that excited by geysers and springs and wildflowers and bears, though elk and bison might be interesting. I'd like to see the canyon, and the river/grass areas seem nice, but a lot of the park is forested plateau. I'm more interested in alpine terrain. Is it really that interesting? Also, Yellowstone has been called a place of 'industrial tourism.' How easy is it to get away from the roads and crowds and see interesting stuff?

And what about the Tetons? You have the dramatic East face, but overlooking Jackson Hole doesn't seem very wilderness-y. What about the interior to the West? I'd still definitely want to play on the East side, though, probably doing some day-mountaineering here with a guide service and maybe floating on the Snake River. Has anyone done this?

Second, what in particular do I want to see in or outside the parks? I'd definitely try to drive the Beartooth Highway. What about the road to Cody? I also definitely want to see the Wind Rivers, which seem maybe more interesting than the Tetons. Has anyone driven or hiked here? Are there any non-mountain areas nearby that are worth taking time to drive to? What about the Wind River reservation?

(I clearly didn't know about Hwy 12 in my Ernest P recommendations above)

Bryce is open all year. You can visit in Winter, tho there may well be snow. The visitor center (and I think the main lod*e) are open (but many of the nearby motels wait til April 1). The road should be driveable and viewpoints accessible, and at least a few trails walkable (there is snowshoein* when lots of snow). Not a time for backpackin*, obv.

Of course, this is the desert (tho at si*nificant elevation - it's plateau country) (to be cont'd)

“Sprin*� probably starts in early or mid-April and at this time day temps can be warm or even hot (but not unpleasant), while nite temps will remain cool to cold. This may be the best time to visit, tho you may risk rain at this time (this may be more of an issue in the Eastern part of the state).

Early or mid-March to late March or early April will be an in-between time. (To be cont'd)

Note that Zion is at about 2000 feet lower elevation than Bryce and will be sli*htly warmer - niice pleasant perhaps as early as mid-March.

(xp - late Mar mi*ht be a *amble, but with the potential to be ideal)

kaibaneb, your posts have a bunch of weird character substitutions. There's an asterisk everywhere there's supposed to be the letter g.

I was just at Big Bend and loved it a lot -- can't wait to go back.

This is a very good (photo-based/spoilers) page for getting a sense of the area. The guy even offers to plan your trip for you.

D: Yellowstone, Everglades, Mt. Rushmore

Everglades is the only national park I've visited I would - unqualifiedly - call boring. I'm terrified of alligators, and the place was otherwise just a big dumb swamp. Okefenokee Wildlife Refuge, somewhat nearby, offers the same stuff in concentrate.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080724/ap_on_sc/exploring_snowy_river

Gonna do Bryce and Zion National parks around April 20th. Hope there's no government shutdown at that time.

S: Crater Lake and Great Smoky Mountains Nat'l Parks are my favorites. Mammoth Cave is cool. I think I will love Acadia, too (going there in the summer). Massacre Rock in Idaho is a great state park, and Craters of the Moon is an amaaaazing National Monument.
D: Mt Rushmore Nat'l Memorial?! Don't actually destroy it please, but I'm not a fan.

Acadia in the summer will not disappoint

If you put a black curtain over the huge presidential faces on Mt. Rushmore, but kept everything else the same, it would still be a hella wonderful place in the Black Hills of South Dakota, so I'm cool with preserving it as a nat'l monument.

the whole etching presidents faces into a sacred native place is pretty gross

S: Yellowstone, Badlands, Sand Dunes, Dry Tortugas
D: none, they're national treasures.

Just got back from doing Bryce and Zion in Southern Utah. Pretty amazing. Love the huge rock spires in Bryce especially. The weather was great too.

they are both so amazing!

has anyone here been to any national parks in:

*france
*francophone africa

Been to a good few in Madagascar if that counts.

totally counts. there are like a million there, iirc. any bad experiences or boring places? which was your fave?

the wiki entry about amber mtn natl park in madagascar is lol. "On this trip up the mountain to the entrance of the park you will pass through a few small villages. Among these is the little village of Sakaramy, a great place to stop and inquire with locals about different fruits, especially the odd-looking jack fruit."

Hmm let's see what I can remember without consulting the diary.

Zombitse: a short walk through a small dry rainforest with some glimpses of lemurs from afar.
Isalo: A long walk across a dusty landscape with some wild swimming in a very scenic pool, no lemur action till the end when the highly habituated (though not tame) lemurs try and steal your food.
Anja park: a nice small local run private park, lemurs very visible but kept their distance.
Peyrieras Reserve: Another private park, don't know who ran it but seemed quite commercial: greenhouses with chameleons and snakes, crocs in a pit, wild but very habituated lemurs, to the point of strokability.
Ranomafana & Andasibe-Mantadia: both large and forested but also obviously geared up for visitors, large and paved paths through lots of the forest, but when your guide spots the lemurs you get to go creeping (or running) through the undergrowth. The lemurs are habituated to people crashing about beneath them, but that's it. We were only going for day long or shorter treks, maybe if you're there for longer you can go deeper and see more of the wilder side of things. We got our money's worth, though managed to see something like 5 out of 7 diurnal and 3 out of 5 nocturnal lemur species.

No bad experiences, wouldn't even be fair to call any of it disappointing. Due to the massive deforestation a lot of the parks were smaller and less green than I was expecting, and even the larger forested ones weren't as wild as I had imagined. But the guides (compulsory in all parks) are very good at finding what you want to see - not just lemurs, they also did a great job at spotting near invisible beetles and chameleons. Ranomafana & Andasibe-Mantadia were obviously the best for wildlife.

Feel compelled to also mention the "park" that was the last stop on our visit, an island in an exclusive hotel full of (supposedly) rescued ex-pet lemurs, tame enough to jump onto you and eat bananas from your hands. Possibly ethically questionable, not at all natural, but stupidly fun.

anyone got any tips for big bend?