If you’re planning on visiting a National Park this summer, you might want to read this first
The national park system is AMAZING. If you have ever wanted to (at least temporarily) trade modernity and technology in exchange for untamed wilderness and some of the most beautiful landscapes in the nation, then the National Park System is for you. But, before you go, allow me to share some insights that we have learned through research, trial and error, and, in some cases, a little bit of heart ache. It just might save your summer vacation!
For those who have visited our National Parks on many occasions, there are likely to be few surprises here – although, there may be some helpful reminders. For the uninitiated, this will likely save your experience from being a frustrating nightmare.
They’re Big.
Anyone from the east coast is likely to be pretty surprised at how expansive a National Park is, especially the parks west of the Mississippi. On one trip, we planned on taking a guided tour. Our confirmation email indicated that we should arrive 15 minutes early. Out of an abundance of caution, we arrived almost an hour early. What was not indicated in the email was the fact that the drive to the location where the tour started was an hour from the entrance to the Park. There was one ranger working the information desk, which meant a twenty minute wait to find out that we were prohibitively late for our tour. We have toured Acadia, Gettysburg, Chattanooga, Sequoia, The Petrified Forest, Mesa Verde, Arches, and Zion. Only the three in the eastern half of the country were quickly navigable (and Acadia still takes quite a while to get around). In each park, plan on at least an hour drive once you enter the park.
They can feel really overwhelming.
I’m a lawyer by trade and an adventurer at heart. It takes a lot to overwhelm me. Yet, the first few visits to a National Park certainly managed to do just that. Plan ahead, map out your routes, be prepared for a total lack of cell phone signal… If you can do all those things, you are in for an amazing experience. If you can’t do those things, maybe you should experience the parks with a tour guide. Either way, the mountains are calling! You’re missing out if you don’t go see it in real life.
They can be REALLY crowded. But, the crowds can often be avoided.
Yosemite was on our list, but, a variety of factors resulted in our opting for Sequoia. One factor was the crowds. In Yosemite, if you drive into the park at the wrong time of day, you’ll be sitting in literally HOURS of traffic. You can avoid this by showing up early in the morning, late in the day, or, by taking the park shuttles. You’ll also be standing in a mob of people once you exit your car, or the shuttle. This is not so much the awe inspiring environment that most of us are looking for. Fortunately, this too, can be avoided. All you have to do is put one foot in front of the other one. It turns out that even those of us seeking out nature are, for the most part, lazy. While there are those who have physical limitations that prevent them from walking very far, most of us have the capacity to actually venture out into the wilderness. Plan ahead, and the decision to leave the crowds behind will absolutely pay off. We visited Sequoia on a Sunday in mid-June and on our 3.4 mile round trip hike we saw only a few groups in passing.
Contrast that to the hordes of people that’ll you’ll encounter on a short, paved, roadside, hike, and you see two very different experiences taking shape.
The paved road, or the road way less travelled…
My kids like rock scrambles and adventure. My wife and I like to keep them away from exposed drop offs and certain doom. None of us really like paved trails. Yet, we were surprised to find a whole lotta paved “hiking trails,” in the national parks. These are a mixed bag for us. On one hand, we don’t consider it hiking. On the other hand, it seems that the intention of having paved hiking trails is to enable access to the greatest number of ability levels. There is also a need to protect the more fragile ecosystems by limiting where feet are trampling. Typically the paved trails were in places where you’d find the most amazing things. Petrified forrest has a ton of paved trails – which allows people of all ability levels to come to one of the few places in the world where wood has turned to stone. This is something that you want to share with the widest audience, but, it doesn’t feel much like a hike (and, don’t get me wrong – you can find hikes in petrified forest which are not paved. The park brochures just a whole lot more attention drawn to the paved trails). They are amazing, and not to be missed. However, they feel more like an outdoor museum. It’s a very cool experience, unless what you were hoping for was the rugged back country.
Come prepared…
Seriously, don’t be the people that have to get rescued because you thought that flip flops would get the job done at the Grand Canyon. Don’t head into a hike with a 24 oz. bottle of water. Go in over-prepared. Have extra water and some snacks. Have some sugary treats to give you a glycemic boost at the end of your hike and some salty snacks to replenish electrolytes. This isn’t home. It may be an entirely different elevation, or environment, than the one that you’re used to. It will be a memorable experience, one way or another. If you want this to be a good memory, you’ll do your homework before you go and you’ll be prepared. Otherwise, you’ll never forget the time that you hated the outdoors because you were thirsty, out of shape, hungry, and/or miserable.
Family Road Trip 