Your favorite State and National Parks

[quote]your most cherish spots

Oh, dear.

I've been to 15 of the national parks, and the best one was Yosemite.

Of the state parks I've been to, Point Lobos SNR was the best.

Staggeringly beautiful, r3

I have never been a wilderness person. I prefer cities except for beaches. But when I stumbled onto Ken Burns' series on the National Parks I was in awe. They were magnificent. That became my favorite of his series not just for the beauty and grandeur of these parks, but for their fascinating history and politics as well.

Alcatraz

Castillo de San Marcos

Hatteras

Howard's Knob (Boone NC)

Bryce Canyon and Zion National Park. Beautiful.

The big 5 in UT

Grand Canyon

Chaco Canyon

Canyon de Chelly

Death Valley

So many more

Delightful thread, OP. A reminder to get outside this spring.

Enjoy them while you can girls

Glacier National Park which spans both the US and Canada is my favorite. Arcadia in Maine is stunning in the fall. I also really loved Bryce and Zion as well.

I'd love to spend Christmas in Yellowstone.

For culture lovers the Amsel Adams gallery in Yosemite also runs photography tours.

[quote] Arcadia in Maine

ACADIA, not Arcadia.

I would tell you bitches about the places that no one has ever heard of, but then you would go there.

Yet another vote for Yosemite, especially Tuolumne Meadows.

Fiordland National Park, South Island, New Zealand

Honourable Mention: Purnululu and the Bungle Bungles, Western Australia, Australia

Muir Woods

Fee free day to select NPs coming up! April 15-16 and 22-23.

These national parks waiving entrance fees on those dates.

If you're a senior, you can get a pass that makes National Parks free EVERY day.

Yosemite for the win. I went in January one year, and it was like being in a snowglobe. And hardly anyone was there! Be sure to stay at The Ahwanee or whatever they're calling it now. (The downside of going in the winter is that much of the park is closed for safety and general impassibility reasons.)

Alpine meadows in Yosemite

The Ahwahnee is now called the "Majestic Yosemite Hotel" due to a legal dispute over the trademarks of the names between the NPS and the previous concessionaire (the greedy Delaware North Corporation). So they came up with these alternate names to keep the various lodges and concessions still going during the dispute. The Ahwahnee/Majestic costs about $500/night to stay at.

I second R15. My favorites are my favorites in part because they're practically deserted.

Anybody into the national park rustic architecture of which Ahwahnee is a superb example. LOVE IT!

Surprised no one has mentioned Crater Lake, OR yet.

Judy Garland Memorial Park on Fire Island

Yes, R25, the old park hotels are beautiful. Although the photo in R25 is not the Ahwahnee, that's in Mt. Rainier NP. The Ahwahnee/Majestic in Yosemite looks like this from the outside:

And the dining room:

The photo was the one associated with the Wiki article posted. As a said, the Ahwanee is an example of the architecture. And the lounge of course was the basis for the Overlook's interior in THE SHINING

Twelve Apostles Marine National Park, Australia

Grampians, Australia

Kakadu, Australia

Fiordland, New Zealand

Abel Tasman, New Zealand

White Sands National Monument.

Has anyone gone to Yosemite and done, say, 2 nights at the Overlook to enjoy the ambience and the rest of the time elsewhere in a cabin or camping?

Better picture

I fantasise about going to a national park for a Thanksgiving away from the the family drama. I imagine many gave the same idea but some hiking, photography, people watching and cookouts would be the perfect holiday in nature.

Canaveral National Seashore, San Onofre State Beach, Assateague Island National Seashore and that one in North Jersey

R33 I think that's a good idea. I've done similar in Death Valley (furnace creek), the Grand Canyon (el tovar) and Zion.

Do it 35. Also the big western parks are beautiful in the winter, largely empty and the rates are cheaper (well maybe the opposite fior DV)

Nice suggestions and pictures.

I like Massachusetts' Cape Cod National Seashore and The Big 5 in Utah.

Macaroni Beach, Cape Cod National Seashore

That's Marconi. Named after the Italian scientist. The first transatlantic radio signal was sent from near there to England in 1903.

[quote]Eight Apostles Marine National Park, Australia

Fixed.

Wolf sightings in Yellowstone

Think about the loveless fascination at Joshua Tree National Park tonight

Of the ones I've been to, Yellowstone and Grand Tetons, Grand Canyon, Bryce Canyon, Banff (Canada), Denali and Kenai Fjords Nationals Parks.

Also, Cape Cod National Seashore deserves a mention.

The ones I haven't been to, but I would like to see: Crater Lake, Carlsbad Caverns, Yosemite, Acadia, Glacier, Arches and other Utah parks, Gates of the Arctic and some of the remote Alaska parks.

The National Park system, as well as many state park systems, are a pretty amazing achievement.

And perfect for drilling and fracking!

By 2020, they'll all have a Trump Hotel and Casino.

The Ahwahnee Hotel reminds me of the Shining Hotel.

For $400 a night minimum you can stay there.. but, on the brighter side, they make excellent cocktails!

Nobody for Letchworth Gorge?

Or the Adirondacks in fall? And you call yourselves a New York board.

[quote]The National Park system, as well as many state park systems, are a pretty amazing achievement.

You can thank Teddy Roosevelt, among others. Teddy Roosevelt: our best president ever.

Ecola State Park on the Oregon Coast. Stunning!

For r43 -- what does it mean if a beautiful straight guy puts that song on on a mixed tape for you? 1989, I was 17, he was 4 years older, and the most beautiful boy in Arizona. Messed up my head for about I year lol

R48 see r30

I find the National Parks to be beautiful, but too crowded much of the year to be enjoyable. I love the wilderness areas of the PNW instead. Winter sucks (I don't like snow), but Spring is great for hiking, Summer is great for backpacking and Fall is great for mushroom hunting.

Outside of the US I think the Canadian Rockies and the South Island of New Zealand are stunning.

Crater Lake is magnificent, there is no question, but the scale is so vast that photos don't do it justice.

Here's some footage that shows a tiny bit of the Ahwahnee Hotel in "The Caine Mutiny" (1954). At 1:18 you also get a brief glimpse of the legendary firefall that used to be done nightly in Yosemite until 1968.

Stephen King stayed at the Stanley Hotel in Estes Park, Colorado and from that he got the inspiration to write "The Shining." Some people think the movie was filmed there, but the exterior shots were actually filmed at Timberline Lodge on Mount Hood in Oregon.

And the interiors were built on a London stage and modeled on the Ahwahnee hotel. No one thinks it was filmed at the Stanley (but the Stanley was used in the crappy miniseries)

One of my favorite 80s songs:

"Holding Out for a Hero" by Bonnie Tyler (1984).

Bonnie singing on the edge of the majestic Grand Canyon!

I wish the spoilsports upthread would share their knowledge of smaller, less crowded parks.

Boo!

Dry Tortugas in Florida is accessible by land and sea and offers shipwrecks, turtles, migratory seabirds and Fort Jefferson.

Visit Big Bend in Texas before Trump erects a wall in the Rio Grande.

Brad Pitt celebrates teetotalism and 3 national parks: White Sands, the Everglades and Carlsbad Caverns.

They still do that at the Broadmoor's Seven Falls.

I love the Smokies.

Tourists bitch about the stairs

My family has been directed to bury my cremated remains at Narada Falls in Mt. Rainier National Park. It's illegal, but what can anyone do about it?

Pipestem State Resort Park

Elder DLers, get your pass before the end of August, as there is a 800% price hike for your lifetime senior's pass.

Another vote for Glacier National Park here-especially after Labor Day. The rug rats and families are gone back to school, the temps are cooler, fall colors are appearing, the insects are goneand the bears are foraging meaning you'll be way more likely to see a grizzly.

Chris Christie State Beach

[quote] Edward and Mary Harkness had a number of homes in addition to Harkness House in New York. They spent summers at their Eolia mansion on Long Island Sound in Waterford, Connecticut, near where Mary had visited her grandparents in the summers. The home and 230 acres (93 ha) of ornamental gardens and grounds are now maintained by the States of Connecticut as Harkness Memorial State Park.

The Harkness State Park in Connecticut.

Edward Harkness was wealthy enough to live in Newport, but the family hated those snobs, so he built his mansion on the Connecticut shore. When Edward Harkness lived there, the story goes, a young boy, a family member, drowned. When he willed the waterfront home to the State, he stipulated that swimming was never to be allowed on the grounds. There are a number of pets buried there, with headstones. I went to the estate sale in the 1960s. The waterfront trees are subject to the prevailing winds which shaped them so that they always look like they are leaning over, slightly.

I used to smoke pot and read Greek Mythology for my high school English class on a bolder that was situated between the high and low tide marks. And I used to jog there. My vote is strictly on a nostalgic basis.

Regicides Trail, New Haven

[quote] R42: Wolf sightings in Yellowstone

I read that the reintroduction of wolves into Yellowstone has served to create lots of unexpected side effects that serve to make it more natural, by changing the predator-pray balance.

For some reason, for example, beavers made a come-back, and their dam creations have changed the course of rivers. Certain wild flowers also made a come back. Basically, it lead to more natural, self-sustaining flora and fauna.

I'm going to say Sequoia, the lesser known sister-park of Yosemite. It has all the same Sierra Madre-style beauty of Yosemite without the crowds. Yosemite feels like Disneyland to me-- trams and crowds everywhere. Sequoia also has more giant sequoia trees than Yosemite, which are extremely rare and the largest living organisms on earth. They are amazing to behold in person and Sequoia NP has more more of the last remaining sequoia groves than anywhere else.

It's pretty easy to get away from the crowds in Yosemite, by taking lesser-used trails or going to quieter spots in Yosemite Valley, or traveling to other areas of the park (Tuolumne Meadows area or Hetch Hetchy). The most crowded places in Yosemite are Yosemite Village, Camp Curry (now called Half Dome Village), the Mist Trail, Tunnel View (now called Yosemite Valley Overlook) Glacier Point and the Mariposa Grove. Most visitors are at these 6 locations, which are but a tiny fraction of the available space. There are 800 miles of trails in Yosemite, many of which are uncrowded.

Sequoia National Park and the adjoining Kings Canyon National Park do offer Sierra Nevada style scenery similar to Yosemite but lack the giant waterfalls and towering cliffs and rock formations. The Zumwalt Meadow part of Kings Canyon is like another Yosemite Valley in miniature - a creek surrounded by a meadow, surrounded by a forest, surrounded by granite cliffs - all that is missing is a waterfall coming off the cliff and you would have another Yosemite Valley in minuature.

Congaree Nagional park looks like a knit wearing, mug cradling fantasy.

I have this print in my office. I love Bierstadt’s work. IIRC, the original is in the either The National Portrait Gallery in DC, or in a NYC museum, maybe the Met, I forget. I recall that it’s really huge, though, like 10 or 15 feet tall.

The price hike got so many objections it may be on hold, thankfully.

Some that haven't been mentioned, I think: Canoeing on the current river in Missouri. More national forest though. Elephant Rocks & Johnson's Shut-ins in Missouri. Isle Royale in Michigan. Bald Mountain and Mirror Lake Highway in the Uintah Mountains in Utah (they are the only range of the rockies to run primarily east-west). When I was a kid we used to go to Big Ridge State Park in Tennessee - but it might not be so fun as an adult.

The most popular national parks in 2017? This may surprise you