US NATIONAL PARK POLL

Options in the OTHER category were chosen if they were less accessible, really small, or lame imo (Hot Springs).

Hot Springs would be better if it included its town's highlight:

http://www.roadfood.com/Photos/4795.jpg

voted Arches btw, so many good times there over the years

acadia rules

I have been to 25 out of the 50 poll options, & 3 of the "others". These places are the best.

I went to Acadia on my honeymoon!

and it rules, doesnt it?

hell yeah

yeah

gonna throw in here for Rocky Mtn. Kind of crowded in spots, but it rules.

acadia was cool but there were sooo many people there iirc

Joshua Tree is amaaaaazing

I won't repeat my stanning for Isle Royale in thread v2.0 but if anyone wants to talk about it I'm down

Generally, I go in the off season when I go to these parks. Been to 15 of em so far, and there is absolutely nothing like an empty national park.

also the off season is pretty much the best time to go to any of the Utah parks, they're all pretty heart stopping covered in snow

acadia was cool but there were sooo many people there iirc

― keillor can folk anything. and he will, and has. (dan m), Tuesday, August 2, 2011 4:45 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

yeah thats because it rules

I'm kind of hesitating to vote for Redwood because all of the state parks around it pretty much measure up to it

upper northern cali is my fav place ever tho, at least so far

these have been the only places I go to when I have vacation time for the past couple years

ok i have been to:
Acadia
Canyonlands
Glacier
Grand Canyon
Lassen Volcanic*
Mesa Verde
Redwood*
Shenandoah*
Yellowstone

*was pretty young for these, don't have much of a memory

Glacier gets my vote, Canyonlands was great too. would like to visit most/all of these in my lifetime if i can swing it

i didn't even remember that Lassen Volcanic existed until this thread actually. no clue what i did there, i was 8 or 9 probably

oh i guess i also drove thru Zion on the way to the Grand Canyon, forgot about that too

cliff palace at mesa verde is pretty amazing.

national forests are pretty dope too but there's way too many to poll

Isle Royale: canoeing/kayaking, hiking, fishing, moose, wolves, ruins, shipwrecks, barely anyone there, will stan 4ever
Acadia: very cool rock formations, kinda small & crowded, seemed like a rich person playground more than a really wild area
Denali: big, empty, cold, impressive, made me feel really small, mountains are amazing
Kenai Fjords: mainly hiked around Exit Glacier & up to take a peek at the ice field which was incredible, took a short boat tour up some fjords too that was awes
Olympic: rained the entire time, banana slugs, lots of dense undergrowth, totally unlike any other forest I've ever been in
Glacier: really awesome, lots of people when I was there, forest fire after-effects were cool to see, glaciers & wildlife were great even from afar
Mt. Rainier: short visit, in and out in one day, good hike but could've done with more time there
Teddy Roosevelt: kinda boring, again just a one day stop, nice walk and long vistas
Voyageurs: very quiet & empty, canoe camping ftw
Mojave (but I was a baby and don't remember)

i think zion. angels landing is magnificent, sorta reminded me of hiking huayna picchu.

i've done arches (hiking, biking, climbing, camping), black canyon (hiking), mesa verde (hiking), rocky mountain (hiking, camping, 14er), glacier (biking, hiking, camping), yellowstone (biking, camping), shenandoah (hiking), north cascades (hiking, camping), grand teton (skiing), sand dunes (hiking), bryce (hiking), canyonlands (biking, hiking, camping), great smoky mountains (hiking, camping), everglades (hiking, boating), and zion (canyoneering, hiking, climbing, camping).

I fuckin almost died when I went up angel's landing. I went in February and the entire trail was straight up ice and I only had old sneakers on w/ no crampons. When I got to the top, there was some geared out old lady there all "...you're so fuckin stupid, how did you even get up here..well, I guess you're going to have to just slide down on your ass"

Yellowstone freaks me out because the entire park is a giant supervolcano caldera. The whole freaking thing. What if it blew one day? Half the US would asplode.

That said it looks kinda cool, would go (if not for crowds)

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

man this is hard

badlands, glacier, haleakala, mammoth cave, wind cave, voyageurs all dope, all for totally different reasons

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

what a sad lil thread, I don't even think I voted in it what the hell

my vote from the ones I've been to now is Glacier, or would've been

woohoo 2 isle royale votes

i thought it was sorta week when i went last time, but i just went back to sand dunes with kids, and it seemed much better. it's basically the best beach in colorado as long as the creek is still running. sand castles and frisbee, and 700 ft of vertical sandhill hike for kids.

*weak*

I love national parks

i've been to 4 of the vote getters; would've voted for Zion. totally getting a Parks pass when I move westward next month, stoked to be near(er) to so many parks, natl and the rest.

Feel like this thread deserves a bump. I try to see at least one Park a year. So far I've visited the Great Smoky Mountains (most visited NP in the US!), Hawaii Volcanos, Haleakala, Shenandoah (three day hike saw plenty of through hikers on the APT and a black bear!), Yosemite (visited with a tour group when I was a kid so we just drove through it), Zion (did Angel's Landing and the Narrows), Death Valley (got lucky with day time temps in the 80's so we could explore a little bit), Rocky Mountain (camped over night here not my favorite), Canyonlands, Grand Canyon (North Rim), Joshua Tree, and Arches. Latter two might be my favorites. I'm planning on doing a road trip across the US next summer so I'm hoping to add at least three or four more to that list.

RFI Yellowstone -- thinking of going September/early October this year! Specifically interested in WHICH airport to fly into and advice re: minivan camping

We're going this August. By October, there may be snow, or at least temps below freezing. On the plus side, fewer crowds!

Getting there is sort of a pain, iirc, but what we're doing on this trip is flying in to Salt Lake City - where there are more/cheaper options - then making the five hour drive up. Yellowstone means lots of driving, anyway. Going the minivan route probably saves you some hassle, since you don't really have to deal with lodging headaches, but I've never gone camper vanning there before.

I was looking at fling in via the north side of the park but it seems like the best/easiest/strongest infrastructure is to fly in thru Jackson and drive thru Tetons (as far as drives go, it's sold as being, like, a free sightseeing trip...). I imagine no matter what happens we will be impressed/amazed but it seems so spread out it's impossible to see all the major attractions in 7-10 days

Yellowstone is awesome. Spend at least a weekend in the old Yellowstone hotel situated right near Old Faithful.

How long were you in the park; did you have a particular route that you traveled?

Been a while for me, but if memory serves it takes 30 to 40 minutes or so to get anywhere. The roads are slow, may be traffic, could be animals, and there are few direct routes. And there's no A-B-C-D route, per se. You sort of radiate out from various home bases. But I may misremembering.

i actually liked the canyon better than the geysers iirc

Did yall do any day hikes or similar or was it attractions/landmarks only?

Kiiiiiick

i just did attractions/landmarks in yellowstone since i had spent the previous week hiking in glacier already. there's definitely hiking to be done there though if that's your thing, but i'm not aware of any particularly exciting geological features to hike to that haven't had a road built to them.

Just got back from Acadia, it was spectacular and not too crowded

i've always wanted to visit acadia.

i'm sure i've said this somewhere else but this thread needs it registered that Great Basin National Park is a beaut.

i love acadia

i was in joshua tree this weekend which i also love

does anyone have experience w the federal campsite situation? "money in envelope; tear off tag" seems ripe for controversy in a park of that popularity

are there any other parks like joshua tree where there are no trails and you can just walk wherever you want?

does anyone have experience w the federal campsite situation? "money in envelope; tear off tag" seems ripe for controversy in a park of that popularity

― How Butch, I mean (Jimmy The Mod Awaits The Return Of His Beloved), Tuesday, June 9, 2015 4:08 PM (35 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

idk the answer to this when it comes to yellowstone specifically, but it's been an extremely straightforward in all other places I've been.

I went to a state swamp in Louisiana recently and it was the most terrifying environment I've been in, in the US, thus far. There was absolutely no one else around, the spiders were as big as my head, snakes everywhere, an alligator popped up out of nowhere near my leg, I didn't know what was poisonous and what wasn't. It was all pretty amazing, can't wait to go back prepared.

with like full body armor?

2 hot 4 that