Hey there, thrill-seekers and nature nerds! 🌲
Plans to visit one of the country’s national parks imminent? Consider yourself one of the anxious overthinkers among us. What to choose? Each of the 63 national parks vying for your attention seems intent on extravagantly yelling: ‘Pick me! Pick me!’ Falling water everywhere. Super volcano! Prairie fire! Hey, check out those buttress roots! And those deer! And that lighthouse! Migration! Super cluster of Life, the Universe, and Everything! Plate tectonics! Oh the excitement! And the drive there! Plates shift beneath your tires, your life-choices explode in an array of vainly plausible justifications, and the voices in the back of your head are now screaming ‘Pick me! Pick me!’ But instead of going where the crowds go, something else occurred to me. Of the many popular national parks our nation has to offer, even the ‘less popular’ parks can be crowded – yet some of my best experiences in the outdoors have been in way more remote, low-visited places. So let’s dig into the wild, the weird, the underrated, and the geologically wonderful of America’s less-visited parks.
Iconic Landscapes of Yellowstone
Saddle up, buttercup, because you are headed to Yellowstone National Park, where the geysers and the fauna are the tourist attractions. There’s Old Faithful’s predictable tantrum, the Grand Prismatic Spring’s swirling psychedelic rainbow.
Be on the lookout for bison, elk and even a wolf or two. Planet Earth could have been taped here in Yellowstone. And Yellowstone Lake, the largest high-elevation lake in North America, is worth a stop to view one of its crystal-clear waters reflecting the mountains. Mother Nature holds great beauty and Yellowstone truly captures that.
Majestic Peaks of Yosemite
Then it’s south to Yosemite, land of the giants, that colossal California crown jewel where cliffs and waterfalls vie for attention, and hikers and rockclimbers come to prevail over legends such as Half Dome and El Capitan.
Walk to the majestic Yosemite Falls, the sixth-highest waterfall in North America, or gaze at the golden granite spires jutting from the park’s high country, which provide rich habitat to the park’s black bears, as well as the decreasingly rare Sierra Nevada bighorn sheep. Here, you can go mountain climbing, or sit and enjoy the view – or both. A big one, as they say, either way.
Breathtaking Beauty of the Grand Canyon
It is perhaps the quintessential place to feel the minuteness of human existence – a feeling no doubt amplified by the prehistoric scale of the Grand Canyon itself, a precipitous ravine carved by erosion over millions of years. Standing on a rim and looking a mile down into a valley floor, you’d have to check yourself if you don’t find yourself picking your jaw up off the desert floor.
But do yourself a favour: descend into the canyon for an intimate view, because the farther you go the bigger it gets, and because the sunrises and sunsets are light shows of such grandeur that every July 4th fireworks show you’ve ever seen is a blinking explosion by comparison. Grand? Ridiculous.
Unique Ecosystems of Everglades
Finally, to the swamps. Everglades National Park is a UNESCO World Heritage Site: a boggy subtropical paradise on the southern tip of Florida where slow-moving sawgrass marshes yield to saltwater mangrove forests and, in the inner parts, where tides halt, shallow lakes of brackish water glisten in the sun. The delicate ecosystem plays host to a unique mix of wildlife.
Paddle along the waterways, look out for American alligators, seek the shadow of a Florida panther, and marvel at the pink and gangly roseate spoonbill. This is the nursery of life, not just for some but for all that is alive. Watch and listen in the Everglades, and you will experience, in an almost primal sense, the very essence of nature.
But get out there! Don’t let touristy crap feed your bucket list. Check out the geothermals of Yellowstone or the idiosyncratic ecosystems of the Everglades; trek the wilderness of Yosemite, the mountains of the Great Smokies or the beaches of the Channel Islands. Go! 🌍🚀💥
