I love backpacking, hiking, strolling, kayaking, and taking photos outdoors and have visited lots of great parks over the years. In this set of articles, I'm going to cover my favorite US National Parks, describe why each is uniquely amazing, and provide lots of great photographs.
Since this is the introduction post, I'll start by listing some of the first parks that I will cover in greater detail in the series. When people ask me what my favorite park is I usually try to get away with providing a Top 3. If really pressured here is how I would rank my Top 5 (though my feelings on this could change the next time I visit a park!):
1. Olympic National Park - Amazing diversity of habitat types
Situated on the Olympic Peninsula of Washington State, this park has an incredible diversity of habitats and scenery, including relatively rare temperate rainforests that contain ferns as tall as people and trees coated and dripping in moss. The park also has evergreen forests, alpine lakes, glaciers, beaches, and tidepools full of green anenomes and orange and purple starfish. Last time I went I sat on boulder overlooking a stream and watched transfixed as salmon leapt into the air while attempting to work their way upstream to spawn. I've visited this park numerous times for backpacking, hiking, and floating trips and will write about those in greater detail soon!
https://www.nps.gov/olym/index.htm
2. Yellowstone National Park - Incredible Wildlife & Geothermal Features
While Yellowstone is best known for its geothermal features like Old Faithful, the Grand Prismatic Spring, and my favorite as as kid: stinky bubbling mud; it is also one of the best places in the United States to see large mammals like elk, moose, bighorn sheep, bears, and wolves! I've visited the park a few times, and one of may favorites trips was a long backpack around Heart Lake where I saw moose up close and heard elk bugling and wolves howling at night.
https://www.nps.gov/yell/index.htm
3. Sequoia & Kings Canyon - The world's largest trees, gorgeous High Sierra lakes, highest peak in Lower 48.
Sequoia & Kings Canyon in southern California comprise a jointly managed national park unit that forms a large protected area containing the world's largest trees, the highest mountain peak in the Lower 48 states, some enormous canyons, and beautiful High Sierra lakes. Some branches on Giant Sequoia trees would still be really big trees on their own. I'll post some more photos of these huge trees and go over two great backpacking trips I did there: the Rae Lakes Loop and Hell for Sure Pass.
https://www.nps.gov/seki/index.htm
4. Big Bend - Desert country with high cliffs and sheer canyons
Big Bend in Texas is a great park to visit in the spring. When many other national parks are still snowed in, cacti are blooming here and temperatures are quite pleasant for the desert! Bordering the Rio Grande (and Mexico), my favorite thing about this park is the high cliffs with incredible views of the deserts.
https://www.nps.gov/bibe/index.htm
5. Yosemite - Towering waterfalls over huge rock faces. Beautiful meadows and high Sierra lakes.
Yosemite is best known for Yosemite Valley with its multiple multi-thousand foot waterfalls and enormous glacier-carved granite faces like Half Dome and El Capitan. I've backpacked there lots of times and will provide info on some lesser known, but still spectacular parts of the park.
https://www.nps.gov/yose/index.htm
Stay tuned...
for longer pieces on each of these national parks and some others you may not have heard of! (Like the Buffalo River or Hot Springs National Park)
For other great posts on outdoor fun, visit my old (and now inactive thanks to Steemit) blog: http://trailsofarkansas.blogspot.com