14 US National Parks in 3 Trips: One Photo From Each
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I have been to 14 of the 64 US national parks, over 3 trips and 10 years. The first was the Grand Canyon in 2008, where I worked for a summer at 21. Three more came in 2015, in the east, on a month through the US, Mexico and Cuba. The other 10 came on a 1-month road trip through the West in 2018, which also took me back to the Grand Canyon.
Here is every one of them, with one photo from each.
Where did it start?
Grand Canyon, Arizona
In 2008, I spent about 3 months working at the South Rim on a university work-and-travel programme. On my days off, I hiked. The highlight was the rim-to-rim trek, 4 days and 3 nights from the North Rim down to the river and back up the other side. On the last morning, I woke at 4am, started up the Bright Angel Trail at 5am, reached the South Rim about 3 hours later, and went straight from the top of the trail into an 11.45am shift at work.
Then I went back. In 2018, 10 years later, I stood on the same rim looking down the trail I had climbed. The full story of that first summer is in working at the Grand Canyon at 21.
The Grand Canyon was also one of the 28 finalists in the New 7 Wonders of Nature vote.
Which parks did I see in the east?
Three of them, all in 2015, before the trip carried on to Mexico and Cuba. The rest of that month is in one month across the US, Mexico and Cuba.
Shenandoah, Virginia
Shenandoah is a long, thin park along the Blue Ridge Mountains. Skyline Drive runs the whole length of it, about 170 km, with overlooks all the way down. It is close enough to Washington DC that a lot of people do it as a day out. The best time to be on one of those overlooks is sunset.
Great Smoky Mountains, Tennessee and North Carolina
This is the most visited national park in the US, by a wide margin. The name comes from the blue haze that hangs over the ridges. On the day of this photo, the clouds sat low on them too. It sits across the border of 2 states, Tennessee and North Carolina.
Everglades, Florida
The Everglades is the largest subtropical wilderness in the US. It is a slow, shallow river of grass rather than a swamp. It is also the only place where alligators and crocodiles live side by side. Both of mine were alligators.
Which parks did the 2018 road trip cover?
Ten new ones, plus the return to the Grand Canyon. The trip covered 27 places in 9 states in about 4 weeks. I have grouped the parks by area here, rather than in the order I drove. The whole route is in the 1-month road trip through the US and Canada.
Yellowstone, Wyoming
Yellowstone is the original. It became the world’s first national park in 1872, and it sits on top of a supervolcano whose heat underground feeds more geysers and hot springs than anywhere else on Earth. Old Faithful erupts roughly every hour and a half. Grand Prismatic Spring, behind me here, is so large and so colourful that it looks fake from above.
Grand Teton, Wyoming
Just south of Yellowstone, the Teton range rises straight out of the flat valley floor. There are no foothills in front of it, which is why it photographs so well. Jackson, the cowboy town at the bottom, is the base for both parks.
Rocky Mountain, Colorado
The road over the top of this park climbs high above the tree line. As the photo shows, there was still snow up there in late spring.
Arches, Utah
Utah has 5 national parks, and the route went through all of them. Five parks, one state. That made it the densest stretch of the whole trip, because the drives between them are the shortest anywhere on the route.
Arches has over 2,000 natural stone arches. The most famous is Delicate Arch, the one on Utah’s licence plates. For scale, I am the small figure under the arch in this photo, with my arms up.
Canyonlands, Utah
Canyonlands is the big view. It is a maze of canyons cut by the Colorado and Green rivers, and from the rim you can see for miles.
Capitol Reef, Utah
Capitol Reef is the quiet one. It is built around a 160 km wrinkle in the Earth’s crust, with white sandstone domes along the top.
Bryce Canyon, Utah
Bryce Canyon is a giant amphitheatre packed with orange rock spires called hoodoos. I took this one in the evening light.
Zion, Utah
Zion is a deep red canyon you look up at, rather than down into. It is also the busiest of Utah’s 5 parks. On the trails up the canyon walls, the path behind you turns into switchbacks far below.
Death Valley, California
Then came the heat. Death Valley holds the record for the hottest air temperature ever measured, 56.7°C in 1913. Its Badwater Basin sits about 86 metres below sea level. Zabriskie Point, where this photo was taken, looks out over badlands that ripple like folded cloth.
Yosemite, California
A few hours’ drive from Death Valley, Yosemite is the other extreme. Granite cliffs like El Capitan and Half Dome rise almost a kilometre above the valley floor. Glacier Point, where I am standing here, looks straight across at Half Dome.
What about Antelope Canyon and Horseshoe Bend?
Neither is a national park, but both are a couple of hours from the Grand Canyon, and both are worth the detour. Page, Arizona, is the base for both.
Antelope Canyon, Arizona
Antelope Canyon is a slot canyon on Navajo land. It is so narrow you walk through it single file, and the sandstone walls glow orange when the sun gets in from above. It can only be visited with a Navajo guide.
Horseshoe Bend, Arizona
Horseshoe Bend is a short walk from the road to a cliff edge. Below it, the Colorado River curls in a near-perfect loop, about 300 metres down.
What else did those trips take in?
A few national monuments, which are run by the same park service but are not national parks. The 2018 trip took in Devils Tower, Mount Rushmore and the Colorado National Monument. The 2008 summer ended with Muir Woods, outside San Francisco.
What is worth knowing before a national parks trip?
A few things. One annual pass, America the Beautiful, covers entry to every national park, and it pays for itself within a few parks. Antelope Canyon tours book out, so reserve them early. Death Valley in summer is dangerous, so go early in the day and carry far more water than you think you need. And the drives between parks in the West often take most of a day, so plan fewer stops than you think, because a park you only see through the windscreen on the way to the next one barely counts.
The trading came along the same way it always does, in about 15 minutes a day. That routine is the reason a month on the road is possible at all. I wrote up how it works in how I trade while travelling.
Which of these parks would you put first? And which one should I see next? Let me know in the comments.
All my other trips are on the travel log, country by country, and more photos are on Instagram, @iamrecneps.
Spencer Li
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