Yellowstone National Park

Players:  Jenny, Jake & Jackson
Date of Visit:  Most recently, June 2007 although I lived there for three months in 2005
Website:  www.nps.gov/yell

Location:  Wyoming
Entrance Fee:  $25/car, good for 7 days at both Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Park

Type of trip:  Several nights camping as part of Western US Road Trip
Park Passport Stamps Available:  24 (!!)

In the documentary The National Parks:  America’s Best Idea by Ken Burns, one of the featured speakers talks about how every family has one National Park that feels like “their” national park; for me, Yellowstone is “my” Park.  Yellowstone was a park I visited with my family as a child; my father before me had visited with his parents as well.  Yellowstone is directly responsible for the existence of my son (whose name Jackson Cody recalls the two Wyoming towns closest to the Park); I have lived within the boundaries of the Park and hiked hundreds of miles in the backcountry.  I’ve seen the Park in the snow and in the heat, crowded in midsummer and nearly empty in early May; the Park has seen me joyous and sad, sick with fever and more alive than I’ve ever felt. I’m not a religious person, but if ever I’ve felt the presence of a higher power, it was here.  I came to Yellowstone at a crossroads in my life, and found it sublimely healing.

But enough of the existentialism! 

Great Smoky Mountain National Park

Players:  Jenny 

Date of Visit:  May 2009

Website:  www.nps.gov/grsm
Location:  North Carolina & Tennessee
Entrance Fee:  Free!
Type of Trip:  Weeklong camping trip
Park Passport Stamps Available:  10

Trip Report:  Great Smoky Mountain National Parks sits on the border between North Carolina and Tennessee, and is the most-visited park in the National Park System.  In addition to being a fabulous hiker's park (the great Appalachian Trail runs for nearly100 miles through the park), Great Smoky Mountain houses an amazing array of plant and animal life -- including black bears and the reclusive salamanders.  GRSM also houses hundreds of waterfalls, lofty mountain peaks, and an interesting feature known as the Appalachian Grassy Bald -- an open hilltop or mountainside whose origins are not really known.  There is also a human history to the area (not entirely pleasant as hundreds of people who had lived in the park for years were moved out upon the creation of the national park), and you can visit old settlements and cemeteries within the park boundaries.

Part of the reason it is home to such an abundance of wildlife is due to the climate in the Smokies.  Great Smoky Mountain receives a lot of rainfall every year, and my trip in May of 2009 was no exception to this.  It rained on me every day that I was there -- sometimes only at night and the sun did come out while I was there but it was rain nonetheless.  It is important for visitors to the Smokies to be prepared for all types of weather, and hikers/campers should plan on rain during at least part of their visit.

Classic View of the Smokies

Grand Teton National Park & John D. Rockefeller Memorial Parkway

Players:  Jenny & Jake
Date of Visit:  A few times during Summer 2005, but camped overnight in July

Website:  www.nps.gov/grte
Location:  Wyoming
Entrance Fee:  $25 per car, good for both Yellowstone & Grand Teton for 7 days
Type of Trip:  Overnight trip from Yellowstone
Park Passport Stamps Available:  4 for Grand Teton, plus 1 for the Rockefeller Memorial Parkway

Trip Report: During the summer of 2005, when I was living and working in Yellowstone, we made several trips down to the Tetons and Jackson, Wyoming.  To me, the Tetons epitomize what mountains should be...rising nearly 7000 feet from the Valley below, with a sparkling blue lake at their base.  It's hard to look at those craggy mountain tops without wanting to hike right up the side :)  Like it's neighbor to the north (Yellowstone), Grand Teton offers plenty of hiking, camping, fishing, wildlife watching, and so on.  It is also one of the premier climbing destinations in the Rockies.  Due to its slightly lower elevation, many of the trails and visitor facilities on the valley floor are accessible a little earlier in the spring than some of the places in Yellowstone.  Trails at higher elevations, however, may not be snow-free until mid-July.  Grand Teton is also a much smaller park than Yellowstone, allowing you to get a really good feel for the park in just a few days.

Tetons & Lake Jackson

Grand Canyon National Park

Players:  Jenny, Jake & Jackson
Date of Visit:  May 2008

Website:  www.nps.gov/grca
Location:  Arizona
Entrance Fee:  $25 per car, good for 7 days at both the North Rim and the South Rim
Type of Trip:  Overnight as part of Western US road trip
Park Passport Stamps Available:  11 (!)

Trip Report:  To me, calling the magnificent area in Northern Arizona the “Grand Canyon” is a little bit like calling a cruise ship a “big boat;”  the words don’t really do it justice.  Neither do the pictures or anything I’m about to describe.  Really, you should just go see it yourself.

The Grand Canyon is immense, nearly 300 miles long, a mile deep and ten miles across the rim.  The Colorado River has carved the depth of the canyon, exposing some of the oldest rocks visible on the planet; wind and water have done the rest of the work to widen the canyon and form the various spires and formations in the area.  The canyon is so awe-inspiring that it moved President Theodore Roosevelt to remark, “In the Grand Canyon, Arizona has a natural wonder which is in kind absolutely unparalleled throughout the rest of the world. I want to ask you to keep this great wonder of nature as it now is. I hope you will not have a building of any kind, not a summer cottage, a hotel or anything else, to mar the wonderful grandeur, the sublimity, the great loneliness and beauty of the canyon. Leave it as it is. You cannot improve on it. The ages have been at work on it, and man can only mar it."

A view into the Grand Canyon

Everglades National Park

Players:  Jenny, Jake & Jackson
Date of Visit:  March 2010
Website:  www.nps.gov/ever
Location:  Florida
Entrance Fee:  $10 per car, good for 7 days
Type of Trip:  Overnight camping trip
Park Passport Stamps Available:  5
Trip Report:  I had lived in Florida for a total of four years before I ever made it to South Florida, and the two things that I wanted to visit the most were the Florida Keys and the Everglades.  The Everglades is a truly unique environment, encompassing hundreds of square miles of very slow moving water as well as hundreds of species of birds, fish, alligators and even crocodiles.  Before we visited, I had a very clear picture in my head of what I would see in the Everglades:  miles of sawgrass, the ocean, and some birds.  I was sort of shocked to discover that there were campgrounds in the Everglades (how do you camp in a marsh?)  I did see all those things, but we discovered a whole lot more in the park as well.  I was pleasantly surprised by Everglades National Park, and would like to return someday soon to spend more time in the area.

The Everglades

Top Ten (Ok, 17...)Things to Do in Yellowstone National Park

As outlined in a previous post, I spent the summer of 2005 working for the park concessionaire in Yellowstone National Park.  It wasn't glamorous work, but I did get the opportunity to live in Yellowstone for an entire summer and I spent alot of my free time exploring and hiking.  I created this Top Seventeen list for a friend who was going to Yellowstone the following summer.

• Walk around the Old Faithful Geyser Basin.  You can pick up a guide leaflet by the trail for 50 cents (or return it when you’re done and you can use it for free).  Stop by the Old Faithful Visitor Center before you start walking to note the times of the major eruptions in the area.  Old Faithful erupts about every 90 min; if you can time it right, try to catch either Castle Geyser or Riverside Geyser too.

Castle Geyser

• For a unique perspective, hike up to Observation Point to watch Old Faithful erupt.  The trail goes off the boardwalk behind the Old Faithful Lodge.  It’s about a ½-mile hike and kind of steep, but well worth it.
• Walk around the Hot Springs at Mammoth.  Same thing with the guide leaflet.  Rangers at Mammoth lead guided walks of the terraces too that are pretty interesting.
• Check out the Upper and Lower Falls of the Yellowstone.  If you feel like getting out of your car, check out the Uncle Tom’s Trail on the South Rim of the Canyon.  It’s a whole bunch of stairs down to the base of the falls – hard on your lungs coming up but well worth it.
• Take a few minutes to go in the Old Faithful Inn.  It is the original National Park lodge and it’s stunning.  They do historical tours of the inn which are really cool.

Interior of Old Faithful Inn

Bryce Canyon National Park

Players:  Jenny, Jake & Jackson
Date of Visit:  June 2008
Website:  www.nps.gov/brca
Location:  Utah
Entrance Fee:  $25 per car
Type of Trip:  Overnight trip as part of Western US Roadtrip
Park Passport Stamps Available:  1
Trip Report:  Bryce Canyon is a very unique place.  Located in southern Utah, it is part of the Colorado Plateau (which also includes several other national parks and scenic areas in the Southwest).  Bryce is a natural amphitheater full of rock spires and formations called hoodoos; what really sets Bryce Canyon apart, however, is its gorgeous colors -- reds, oranges, yellows, even purples.  Bryce is named for an early settler, Ebenezer Bryce, who commented that the canyon was "a hell of a place to lose a cow."

Bryce Canyon Amphitheater

Blue Ridge Parkway & Shenandoah National Park

When most people think of the National Parks in the United States, they picture the snow-capped Rockies of Grand Teton, the geysers of Yellowstone, or the Sierra Nevada in Yosemite.  Although these parks are magnificent and deserving of a visit, the parks that lie closest to the most number of people are actually in the East.  In this post, I'll outline Shenandoah National Park -- only about an hour from the major population center of Washington, DC.  We'll also take a look at a road that provides an opportunity for Sunday driving at its best, the Blue Ridge Parkway.

Shenandoah National Park
Players:  Jenny & Zach
Date of Visit:  June 2010
Website:  www.nps.gov/shen
Location:  Virginia
Entrance Fee:  $15 per car
Type of Trip:  Drive-through (Wish I could have stayed longer!)
Park Passport Stamps Available:  5 (including a special 75th Anniversary Stamp only available in 2011!)

Driving through Shenandoah

Trip Report:  Shenandoah National Park encompasses the northern end of the Blue Ridge Mountains; the Blue Ridge is an old mountain chain, and years of erosion have worn them down to gentle peaks.  To the east of the Blue Ridge lies the farmland of Eastern Virginia -- making for some terrific views.  Shenandoah National Park is long and skinny, only a few miles wide but stretching 100 miles along the crest of the Blue Ridge Mountains from Front Royal to Waynesboro.  The Skyline Drive is the main park road, and travels the length of the park.  Besides the scenic drive through the park, there are many things to do here:  camping, hiking (the Appalachian Trail runs through the length of the park), viewing nature, learning about history, and so on.  Shenandoah benefited heavily from the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) efforts in the 1930s, and several of the park's buildings are remnants from that period.  In addition, this is one of the few outdoor/hiking parks where you can witness the changes history has wrought -- the Lewis Mountain area was originally built as a segregated area for African Americans.  Even more interesting, and something I really want to do someday, is stay in a hiker's cabin in the park run by the Potomac Appalachian Trail Club :)  However, on this trip, all we were able to do was to drive through the park.

Badlands National Park

Players:  Jenny, Jake & Jackson
Date of Visit:  June 2007
Website:  www.nps.gov/badl
Location:  South Dakota
Entrance Fee:  $15 per car
Type of Trip:  Daytrip as part of Western US Road Trip
Park Passport Stamps Available:  1
Trip Report:  I have actually been to the Badlands three times -- once as a kid, once on my way out to work in Yellowstone, and once in 2007 on the way back from our Western US trip.  In 2007, we basically just took a scenic drive through the park; on the other visits, however, I was able to hike around a little bit.

Badlands National Park combines strange landscape formations with a large prairie ecosystem, providing an interesting look at both geology and nature. There are also fossils to be found here (hmmm, will have to remember that the next time I take Jackson out west). In certain places, you can even climb up on some of the weird rock formations -- as a kid, I found this highly entertaining!

The easiest way to visit the Badlands is to drive the main park road, which takes about 60-90 minutes, depending on traffic.  It's just a quick drive off of I-90 to get to the park, so even if you don't have a lot of time, you can still at least get a taste of what this park has to offer. Mount Rushmore is only 100 miles west of the Badlands, so you could easily combine the two into a day trip.  However, with more time, you could take in a ranger program, or do some hiking around on the rock formations.  The Notch Trail, in particular, can give a good glimpse of the canyon and rock formations in a relatively short period of time.

Badlands Scenery

As with all places in the prairie, the Badlands can be very hot in summer and cold and snowy in the winter -- plan accordingly!  There is also only one place in the park for lodging and dining -- the Cedar Pass Lodge.  There are two campgrounds in the park, one developed and one primitive.  I have not camped in the Badlands, however.

One of the other fun things to do -- which can also be done from your vehicle -- is watching wildlife.  The Badlands are home to coyotes, bison, bighorn sheep, bobcats, prairie dogs, foxes and much more.

American Bison, symbol of the American West

All in all, this is a great park in which to spend anywhere from a few hours to a few days.  I look forward to visiting again and discovering some of the additional activities in the park.


Interesting sidenote:  the Minuteman Missile National Historic Site, dedicated to teaching about the Cold War, is located just a few miles from Badlands National Park.  You can take a tour of the missile launch center and everything -- hard to believe I missed this the last time I was at Badlands.  FMI:  www.nps.gov/mimi

Arches National Park

Players:  Jenny, Jake & Jackson
Date of Visit:  May 2007
Website:  www.nps.gov/arch
Location: Utah
Entrance Fee:  $10 per car
Type of Trip:  Overnight Trip as part of Western US National Parks Roadtrip
Park Passport Stamps Available:  1
Trip Report:  This was Jackson's first national park, and the first stop on a 3-week roadtrip through the Western United States that we took in 2007.  Arches National Park is located in southern Utah, in the desolate rock/canyon section of that state. Arches is just a few miles outside of Moab, UT and a few miles from Canyonlands National Park (which we did not visit for some reason).  This means that Arches can get very hot in the summer and snowy/icy in the winter.   Arches National Park protects some of the fantastic red sandstone arches, natural bridges, and hoodoos found in this area.

Working for a Park Concessionaire

In the summer of 2005, I decided I wanted a break from the "real world" and headed out to Yellowstone National Park to work for the park concessionaire, Xanterra Parks & Resorts.  A concessionaire is a for-profit company that has an exclusive contract with the National Park Service to provide food, lodging, tours, entertainment, and so on to the visitors of the park.  Many of the National Park Service units have at least one concessionaire on their property (such as Eastern National, which runs many of the gift shops at other parks).  Xanterra is one of the larger companies, with several properties in Yellowstone as well as Zion National Park, Death Valley, the Grand Canyon, Mount Rushmore and others.  Every season, they hire thousands of "seasonals;" workers interested in working for a particular heavy period of visitation.  In Yellowstone, the main season is summer; in other parks, it might be winter.  Xanterra also has several "permanents," who work both the summer and winter season in Yellowstone, or year-round at their headquarters in Gardiner, Montana.  Most of the seasonals are college kids on summer break, international workers who come for an experience or retirees.  Many seasonals come back year after year to work in the park.  It's relatively easy to get a job as a seasonal in Yellowstone or one of Xanterra's other properties.  Here, then, are the pros and cons of working for a park concessionaire.

Parks Visited as a Child, Part 2

Continuing in this post, I'm going to outline the National Park Service Units I have only visited as a child with my family.  I hope to re-visit most of these sites some day as my memories of many of them are quite hazy.

Glacier National Park
Players:  Jenny, Steve, Carole & Jenny's sisters
Date of visit:  Summer 1994?
Website:  www.nps.gov/glac
Location:  Montana
Entrance Fee:  $25 per car
Type of Trip:  Daytrip as part of Western US Epic Road Trip
Park Passport Stamps Available:  9
Review:  One of the "crown jewels" of the National Park system, Glacier National Park has attracted lots of attention in recent years because of the rapid shrinking of its namesake glaciers.  The thing I remember most about Glacier was driving over Going-to-the-Sun Road, a 50 mile road that is a feat of engineering through some of the most stunning alpine passes to be found on the American continent.  I distinctly remember sitting in the backseat of the car on the passenger side and being able to look out my window straight down the side of the mountain....I didn't like that so much!  I'm glad my dad is a good driver :)  But I do remember the scenery on the drive.  And I think we stopped at a chalet somewhere in the park, and it was snowing lightly -- a novel thing for the middle of summer for an Iowa girl.  Glacier is on my list of parks to go back and hike ASAP.
 
Great Sand Dunes National Park
Players:  Jenny, Jenny's cousin & Jenny's grandma
Date of Visit:  Summer 1996?
Website:  www.nps.gov/grsa
Location:  Colorado
Entrance Fee:  $3 per adult
Type of Trip:  Daytrip while passing through Colorado on way to New Mexico
Park Passport Stamps Available: 1
Review:  Great Sand Dunes National Park & Preserve has the tallest sand dunes in North America.  It is truly a unique experience to climb up sand dunes and slide down them right here in the United States.  We stopped at this park on a trip to the Southwest with my grandma.  My cousin and I had a great time here.  It was really hot and I remember how hot the sand was on my feet.  And it is much harder to climb up a sand dune than it appears!  I look forward to taking Jackson here someday.