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Let's talk about National Parks

For those of you wanting to go to Yosemite - for the love of god, do not go there on a holiday if you can avoid it.

I have been there twice - once being on Memorial Day last year. I knew it was going to be bad, but nothing could have adequately prepared me for how busy it was going to be. It was almost indescribably busy. We couldn't get anywhere near Glacier Point unless we wanted to wait at least an hour in a long line of traffic. Once we decided it wasn't worth it, we tried leaving the park. We were still stuck in a massive traffic jam for almost 2 hours while trying to escape the park.

In other words, try to go on a weekday during sometime that is not peak tourist season. If you have to go on a holiday, get there early and be prepared for it to suck by noon.
 
Cyclones_R_GR8 said:
I have been trying to think of a destination for a bike trip this year. Maybe this should be the year I make the trek to Glacier NP. I can stop and ride Bear Tooth pass on the way up or back and maybe take a swing through the north part of Yellowstone.
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Have made that exact trip on my bike. Glacier is awesome - you have to ride Going to the Sun road. We stayed in Kalispel for a couple of nights and then headed down to YNP. You gotta do it.
 
Back from Death Valley. Working on more pictures, but wanted to throw this up here. This is a pic of gold mill ruins from the nearby Golden Treasure Mine. Also, in honor of "May the Force" day, wanted to note some parts of the original Star Wars filmed here (plus a deleted scene from Return of the Jedi, I believe).

Death Valley was something else. Massive, massive park at 3.4 million acres, roughly the size of Connecticut. If you have a chance, go! Temperatures weren't too bad at only about 110. We both felt fine, just got parched quickly. The Artist Point Drive was a highlight, as were the many canyon hikes/climbs we did. Badwater Basin is the lowest point in both North and South America, and has the famous salt flats there.

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Heading up to Mt Hood national forest, Mt Rainier national park and maybe Olympic national park this weekend. Anyone have any experience with any of those? Any pointers on can't miss hiking spots or views?
 
JH4ISU said:
Heading up to Mt Hood national forest, Mt Rainier national park and maybe Olympic national park this weekend. Anyone have any experience with any of those? Any pointers on can't miss hiking spots or views?
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Are you trying to hit all those this weekend?!? Mt. Hood is 3-4 hours south of Rainier, which is 2-3 hours south of the Olympics...
 
For anyone going to Death Valley - visit Ash Meadows National Wildlife Refuge while you are there. It is a few miles east of the park in Nevada. It is an oasis in the Mohave that contains many plants and animal species that exist nowhere else in the world. Some of the best are the pupfish species. A few exist only in one spring / creek and nowhere else. They have boardwalks around some of the springs so you can see the fish very well... and they should be in their breeding colors now through at least the next month or two.
 
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I love Bryce Canyon. This was during a blizzard back in 2011
 

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Let's talk about park baby
Let's talk about you and me
Let's talk about all the good things
and the bad think that may be

Let's talk about park
 
I've been to a handful of them, my favorite being Arches. I definitely like the Rocky Mountain area over the Smoky Mountain area. There are some beautiful sights in northern Wisconsin and the UP of Michigan as well.

The best memory was probably at a little restaurant called Frenchies in Tin Cup, CO in the middle of Gunnison in Colorado. IIRC, they had something like 11 full time residents through the winter. Frenchies was awesome and they've got some good, mild, jeep trails through the area. I took a ton of pictures but they were taken with a 35mm camera, so I sure they're sitting on the roll still.
 
Just got back from Rocky Mountain National Park and ran into two different groups sporting ISU gear. Talked to one graduate who was with his dad and was starting his job in Ames this week and saw a group in the Bear Lake Trail parking lot and told them Go Cyclones and one of them said they had seen several other Clones while in the park. Way to represent Cyclones!
 
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