Tags
Destination, Destination Ideas, National Park, National Parks, NPS, RV Destinations, RV travel, Travel Destination
Most travelers think of summer as the best time to hit national parks – but winter also offers several spectacular sights that make for memorable visits.
So when the snow starts falling, consider a road trip to one of the following parks.
Birders paradise
Winter marks the best time to hike Florida’s Everglades National Park, as the subtropical climate means unbearably hot and muggy summers. Indeed, a number of birds already know this and spend their time in the Everglades after migrating from a northern clime. Among those you can spot on the Anhinga Trail are the double breasted cormorant, great egret, great blue heron, snowy egret, tricolored heron, white ibis and woodstork; turkey vultures congregate during the early morning hours.
Wildlife sightings
Leafless trees and snow’s white backdrop makes sighting large wildlife a lot easier in winter than summer. The Warner Point Nature Trail on the south rim of Colorado’s Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park offers the chance to spot elk and Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep. Look for the elk in clearings and the bighorn sheep on the rocky cliff sides.
Heavy waterfalls
At most parks, waterfalls are most active in spring and early summer, thanks to snow melts. Not so at Washington state’s Olympic National Park. Rain is more likely there during winter, meaning the water flow is higher, making for amore spectacular creeks and falls. One good trail through the park’s lush, old growth forest that ends at a waterfall is the Marymere Falls Trail.
Bearable heat
During summer, unbearable heats makes California’s Death Valley National Park at best a pass through seen from a motor vehicle. The park’s average high in January is a pleasant 67 degrees making winter the perfect time to walk the foreboding desert landscape. Among those sights is the lowest point in North America. Badwater Basin sits 282 feet below sea level and can be accessed in a mile-long round trip hike.
Avoid the crowds
Visitation drops during winter at most parks, so the trade-off for bundling up in coat, cap and gloves is seeing the great scenery without all of the crowds. A good bet is Yosemite National Park’s spectacular Yosemite Valley in California. The Lower Yosemite Fall Trail offers a number of fantastic views of Yosemite Falls in a 1.2-mile loop with the added coolness of falling water frozen in mid-flight on the granite rocks.
About the author:
Rob Bignell is the author of several hiking books, including the bestselling “Best Sights to See at America’s National Parks.”
Craig S. FL~ “I am extremely pleased with the service I received. Your representative kept in constant contact with me to make sure everything was going as planned. I never felt like I was in this by myself. Thank you!!!!”
K
What are the scariest places in the world? Transylvania? A New Orleans cemetery? An abandoned, haunted asylum?
This travel season we’ve spent time in Great Smoky Mountain National Park, Shenandoah National Park, and Acadia National Park. We’ve also dipped our toes into the Catskills and the White Mountains, along with national and provincial parks in the Canadian Maritimes. Visits to places outside of our National Park system clearly revealed just how special our national parks are.
We didn’t plan it this way, to be spending so much time in a handful of our national parks in this, the year of their 100th anniversary. But we are glad we are doing it. After two years of full-time RVing, we’ve finally arrived at the need for slowness, to enjoy, to savor, and to immerse ourselves in our national parks.
One destination we love to visit is Acadia National Park – that gem of land in Maine. We’d been twice before, once for three days, another for just a day. This is barely enough time to take a sip of what is there. Our most recent trip to Acadia was an eight-day adventure, which included the discovery of a part of the park we did not know existed: the Schoodic Peninsula, way on the north side of the park. You can see it sitting in the waterfront park in Bar Habor, looking directly across the bay. It is a different experience altogether, as the land meeting with the sea reaches out from under the soil and places wide, flat fingers of solid rock out into the ocean. It’s fun to walk on, explore, and just simply admire. It really makes the mind wonder how this all actually came about since all explanations are simply theory. I think having a sense of wonder beats the pants off the geological theories of land creation.
For our stay “in the park”, an RV campground just outside of the Bass Harbor Lighthouse, way down in the southwest corner of Acadia, was just about perfect. It meant a bit more driving but the towns and views were well worth it. Plus we discovered parts of Acadia we would have missed – those tucked away tiny towns with a handful of shops and restaurants. Places where you meet the top professional photographer in his studio, and chat about Acadia and its offerings like friends of years past.
The inland forests make for hikes from the easiest stroll to life-challenging iron rod vertical scrambles. Whichever meets your standard of fitness and daring, you’ll find it here. We passed on the chains and steel rods, and avoided the rappelling classes, thank you very much. But we did hike to the top of Acadia Mountain, a challenging hike up and even more so on the way down. With views to curl your toes, across the forest canopy and out into the lengthy harbors and finally the deep blue ocean that is Acadia. And always surrounding by that musky fir forest smell. Lovely, just lovely.
America’s national parks are known for their great vistas and fantastic rock formations, but they also preserve another treasure: wildlife. In fact, national parks rank among the best places to see interesting and rare wildlife. Late summer marks a particularly good time for wildlife viewing at many parks as most mothers bring out their young by that time of the year.
It seems that no matter how many times we visit national parks we learn something new. And Gettysburg National Military Park is a good example. Our second visit here, and four ranger-led walks and talks later, we develop a new appreciation and understanding for what went on in this battlefield to end all battlefields.
Nothing quite so effectively displays Mother Nature’s beauty than a sunrise or sunset, those few moments each day when the world shines golden and with incredible serenity.
Day hikers can walk to one of the first spots where the sun touches America each morning via the South Ridge Trail in Maine’s Acadia National Park. The trail is a 7.2-miles round trip to the top of Cadillac Mountain, which is the highest summit on the Eastern seaboard. Though the hike would be done in the dark, with moonglow and flashlights, the trail is traversable. Acadia’s ancient granite peaks are among the first places in the United States where the sunrise can be seen. Be sure to bring a blanket to lay out on the cold rock and take a seat looking southeast.
Fairyland really does exist – it’s smack dab in south central Utah, where a maze of totem pole-like rock formations called hoodoos grace Bryce Canyon National Park. Hoodoos are unusual landforms in which a hard caprock slows the erosion of the softer mineral beneath it. The result is a variety of fantastical shapes. Take the Queens Garden Trail, which descends into the fantasyland of hoodoos. When hiking during the early morning, sunrise’s orange glow magically lights the trail’s contours.
About 1 million Mexican Freetail bats live in Carlsbad Caverns. During the day, they rest on the ceiling of Bat Cave, a passageway closed to the public. At sunset, to feed for the evening, the bats dramatically swarm out of the cave in a tornadic-like spiral, their silhouettes stretching into the distant horizon. An open-air amphitheater allows visitors to safely watch the bats’ departure in an event called The Night Flight. The Chihuahuan Desert Nature Trail, a half-mile loop, also allows you to watch the bats disperse across the New Mexican desert.
Among the Grand Canyon National Park’s most spectacular sights – sunrise and sunset – can be seen within walking distance of Grand Canyon Village in Arizona. While the South Rim Trail extends several miles along the canyon edge, you only have to walk to Mather Point, where views of the canyon shift like pictures in a marquee at both sunrise and sunset. Another great spot that’s a little less crowded is Ooh Ahh Point on the South Kaibab Trail, which is east of the village and south of Yaki Point. The aptly named Ooh Ahh Point is less than 200 feet below the rim.
You can enjoy views of sunrises and sunsets covering up to a hundred miles on the Clingmans Dome Trail in Great Smoky Mountains National Park. At 6625 feet, Clingmans Dome is the highest point in Tennessee and along the Appalachian Trail, as well as the third tallest east of the Mississippi. A half-mile trip leads to the summit. How incredible are the sunsets? They can be crowded, as those hoping to photograph the stunning scenery line up 45 minutes before the sun descends.
A full 95 percent of Florida’s Biscayne National Park sits underwater, a turquoise blue paradise laced with vividly colored coral reefs – and nothing quite says romance like a sunset over this tropical ocean. Adams Key offers a quarter-mile trail from the dock through the hardwood hammock on the island’s west side; most of the route skirts the beach, where the sunset can be enjoyed.
Clambering over boulders and ambling across strangely angled slickrock – and watching needles aglow at sunset – await on Canyonlands National Park’s Slickrock Trail in southeastern Utah. The 2.9-mile loop trail generally follows a mesa rim. Plan to walk the trail about an hour or so before sunset; on the final mile, tall thin rock formations called needles fill the horizon, glowing crimson as the sun sets.
Located in southern Sierra Nevada, east of the San Joaquin Valley, Sequoia National Park and Kings Canyon National Park lie side by side to form “The Land of the Giants”. These two majestic national parks received this very-appropriate nickname due to the significant giant sequoias found there. They are two of the nation’s oldest national parks and include a spectacular range in elevation from warm foothills to cold alpine peaks. Be sure to stay long enough to explore both parks as you don’t want to miss the natural beauty they offer. Take some time to hike a trail, take a wilderness trip, visit a cave, explore the ski and snowshoe trails during the winter, go horseback riding or just take in the scenery. There is plenty to do and see.
The centerpiece of this national treasure is the Giant Forest. The largest trees on earth are found here, including General Sherman, which is the world-record holder for the most massive living thing. Dozens of magnificent groves of sequoias can be seen in just 3 square miles.
Moro Rock
Kings Canyon National Park was established in 1940 and covers 461,901 acres and consists of 2 sections. The smaller, General Grant section includes the famous General Grant Tree, and the Redwood Mountain Grove. This Mountain Grove is the largest remaining natural grove of giant sequoias in the world with 15,800 sequoia trees. This section is accessible by way of paved highways.
Zumwalt Meadow