National Park Wish List Revisited

About five years ago, I posted the top 10 national parks I had not visited. In September 2011, I notched two of the 10, Crater Lake and Redwood. I never came close to the other eight on my list.

Yet along and on trips with Nancy, I did hit nine national parks not on the list, plus more than 30 other national park units (national monuments, seashores, historic parks, battlefields and military parks). So the parks have never drift far from my mind or her mind.

What have we covered? I blogged from almost every stop. Here is a somewhat exhaustive list. I excluded repeats (Yellowstone in 2012, Great Smoky in 2013 and 2014, we hit both Hot Springs and Colorado’s Flourissant Fossil Beds in 2015). I also excluded subsequent visits to the Natchez Trace (it starts just west of Nashville so we have taken many day trips) and Land Between the Lakes (a National Recreation Area, but administered by the Department of Agriculture, so technically not an NPS unit).

National Parks -nine (Hot Springs, Olympic, Mammoth Cave, Mount Rainier, Guadalupe Mountains, Carlsbad Caverns, Shenandoah, Congaree, Great Smoky Mountain)
National Monument - four (Little Bighorn, Russell Cave, Petroglyph, Muir Woods)
National Battlefield/Military Park -six (Chickamauga/Lookout Mountain, Shiloh, Fort Donelson, Stones River, Gettysburg, Kennesaw Mountain)
National Historic Site – five (Abraham Lincoln Birthplace, Little Rock Central High School, Carl Sandburg Home, William Howard Taft, Fort Davis)
National Historic Park – three (Colonial, Appomattox Court House, Natchez) National Seashore – two (Gulf Islands, Assateague)
National Scenic Parkway – two (Blue Ridge, Natchez Trace) National Recreation Area – two (Big South Fork, Bighorn Canyon)
Washington, D.C.: Lincoln Memorial, World War II Memorial, Korean War Memorial, Vietnam War Memorial, White House, many others.

 It will be interesting to revisit this list in another five years and see where our travels have led. I’m betting this list won’t prove too predictive. For the next five years, here are 10 more, including many holdovers from the previous list.

Acadia (Maine) This cluster of Maine shoreline and islands has the highest point on the Atlantic Coast. Someday I want to see the sun rise there. We came as close as possible without entering thes one. This is the one that got away – thank you, Senator Cruz. During 2013 Maine vacation or more specifically, our October 2013 Maine vacation in the middle of the government shutdown, we spent two days in Bar Harbor barred from entering Acadia. We could see the park’s barricaded entrances, but had no desire to face fines or arrest for entering the property.

Big Bend (Texas) So close, but still pretty far away – we were within an hour of Big Bend in 2014 but the massive park on the Rio Grande requires at least one full day. We correctly decided that a stuffed West Texas weekend would have given Big Bend the short shrift. I first saw this stretch of West Texas border country when Harry Dean Stanton rambled across it in Paris, Texas. Since then I've mapped my way there a dozen times. Big Bend features high peaks, desert vegetation, some beautiful canyons carved by the Rio Grande and open skies. Not that Big Bend has cornered the market on dark skies.

Bryce Canyon (Utah) Try to deny those hoodoos. Bryce Canyon’s amphitheater of red stone challenges its neighboring park for beauty. Whether dusk or sunset, I don’t want to skip Bryce Canyon. A window seat on a Las Vegas-bound flight in January 2011 granted me views of a massive red-rock complex that might have been Bryce. Even if it wasn’t, we cannot go as far as Zion and leave off Bryce. I did that elsewhere and you never know when you might return.
  
Denali (Alaska) North America's highest peak, Denali (the former Mt. McKinley) remains the top Alaskan target. Large population of grizzly bears and other megafauna. Glaciers. Unpaved roads. Steep drops. Pristine wilderness. This one could take the longest between the expense involved and the time commitment. Spending time up there requires plenty of preparation. Katmai National Park ranks as a strong runner-up –it would be hard to skip a huge population of grizzly bears and many volcanic peaks

Grand Teton (Wyoming) I can claim to have seen this park – on multiple flights from Denver to Bozeman and once from high elevation in Yellowstone, which sits immediately north. But I have never driven past West Thumb in Yellowstone, thus missing on its smaller but equally vibrant southern neighbor.

Great Basin (Nevada) Three hundred miles from Las Vegas and 230 from Salt Lake City, this park must be hit on a clear night, because it's one of the darkest places in the Lower 48. I want a tent, a sleeping bag and the bright band of the Milky Way lighting the night. Great Basin has a huge collection of bristlecone pines, the oldest trees in the world. Home to the southernmost glacier in North America on 12,000-foot Wheeler Peak, the park boasts rare fauna and a unique set of caves,. But if we go, I’m taking a gunny sack, since park regulations allow visitors to collect pine nuts.

Great Sand Dunes National Park (Colorado) The dunes rise 750 feet in a valley rimmed by 13,000-foot peaks in Colorado's San Luis Valley. The area runs rich with wildlife and seems ideal for discovering solitude. Ideally, it would be paired with a trip through Colorado National Monument and the Black Canyon of the Gunnison, but this should be the centerpiece of any Colorado driving tour. 

Lassen Volcanic (California) Only two volcanoes erupted in the Lower 48 during the 20th century - Mount St. Helens and Lassen Peak. Up in north-central California, the park contains all four types of volcano (don't ask me what they are) and receives a fraction of visitors at better-known parks (432,000 in 2014, compared 3 million-plus at Zion). The ground bubbles in numerous thermal features, including mud pots, hot springs and fumaroles. I long to climb to Lassen Peak’s top to stare at Mount Shasta from Lassen's high point. Besides, any park would a patch of geologic features called Bumpass Hell shouldn't be skipped.  

Yosemite (California) Between Half Dome, the sequoias, El Capitan and the waterfalls, John Muir's favorite park is a trip unto itself. A week might not do Yosemite justice.

Zion (Utah) Somehow I have convinced myself I someday will climb the Angels Landing Trail. We shall see but Zion’s proximity to Las Vegas make it more attractive. It will be best to hit this one in winter, because a shuttle bus runs most of the year, and in the cooler winter months, it's still accessible to private vehicles and the 30-minute lines for shuttle seats evaporate. Those beautiful canyons have roads connecting them with the other Utah parks. But ice could complicate hikes and passage to other parks, most notably the Grand Canyon’s North Rim and eastern neighbor.