National Treasures - National Parks

Natural Treasures – National Parks

Getting away from it all in America's backyard

If the national parks were in it for the money, business would be booming. Last year, 273 million people visited them, and in the next decade that figure is expected to double! Today, however, roads are closing, gift shops are being razed, and new construction is at a standstill throughout the park system. That's because the National Park Service's previous strategy of luring visitors with resort hotels and new roads worked too well, resulting in the traffic jams, pollution, and honky-tonky resort accommodations that now plague many of the national parks.

To save off the major ecological threat that tourism has become, the Park Service is putting the brakes on all environmentally degrading tourism and instead focusing on preservation. The urban ills that the Park Service is attempting to eliminate are especially prevalent in the more that 50 America's national parks, which account for more than half the system's visitors.

That means that finding a spot to pitch a tent or hook up a trailer is not always going to be easy, especially during the summer. Some campsites are on a first-come, first-served basis. For others, you may need to contact the park directly through the National Park Service's Mistix system. The services ranks national parks by popularity and always offers a description of the more interesting tracks they have to offer – beaten or otherwise.

Quarry Lake. Photo by Elena.

Sure ways to beat the crowds

Travel in the off-season has its own rewards – and its own peril

Traffic on the main roads slows to a crawl, people are everywhere. Morning drive time in New York City? No, it's the summer rush to the nation's most popular national parks. Traffic has gotten so bad at some parks that tourists can spot wildlife simply by looking where other cars have pulled over to the side of the road to gawk.

The surest way to beat the crowds is to visit in the off-season. From June through October, Great Smoky National Park typically gets over a million visitors a month, but roughly half that number visit in the months between November and April, when temperatures in the lower elevations average about 50 degrees and occasionally reach in the 70s – perfect hiking weather, in other words.

There are other off-season rewards, too. At Rocky Mountain National Park, the bighorn sheep come down from higher elevations in May to feed on the mud deposits, and wildflowers there are spectacular in the spring. Yosemite National Park's waterfalls rush from the melting winter snows. In the fall, the foliage in many parks is absolutely superb. September is the sunniest month at Rocky Mountain National Park. And Grand Teton National Park is open all winter, allowing access to excellent cross-country skiing.

Of course, seasonal difficulties abound. There are, for instance, sudden snowstorms at Yellowstone National Park as early as September. And spring weather at Zion National Park is unpredictable; flash floods are not uncommon. Mammoth Cave can be especially dank in the dead of winter.

If such perils are too daunting for you, it is possible to avoid the masses in the summer simply by venturing into the backcountry. Most visitors don't wander very far from their cars.