We're less than one year out from the National Park Service's centennial, and visitation has been booming in many units of the National Park System this year. So tell us, travelers, how was your national park stay?
Did you encounter crowds and find them stifling, or were you able to enjoy a measure of solitude? Did you get to enjoy some interpretive programs? How was the general appearance of the park?
Any thumbs up, or thumbs down, you'd like to share? Any rangers who went above and beyond your expectations? Any areas you hope to see improvements in next year?
Comments
I went to Mt. Rainier in a "shoulder" season. A few spots were terribly crowded (Paradise), but most of the park wasn't that bad. The air quality was dismal thanks to wildfires nearby. Truly dismal. It made the spectactular scenery somewhat less easy to appreciate. Still, I saw a lot of wildlife, which was awesome.
Anon, your comments were very interesting. As a professional urban planner, perhaps you might have skills necessary to do much better job of looking carefully at reasons for things like the mess in Yosemite. I keep asking and seeking answers to just a couple of what should be simple questions: 1) How much of the NPS adoption of mismanagement plans that increase commercial development in some of our largest parks are the direct result of political pressures coming from local or state economic powers; and 2) How much comes from Congress?
If you can answer those two questions, you'll do a real service for the rest of us who care. And if someone could clearly expose the origins of the carefully hidden and tangled webs of influence that produce these disasters, perhaps that knowledge might help fight them more effectively.
I live in AZ & went to both sections of Saguaro National Park & Petrified Forest National Park & Tonto National Monument this year. I love these parks but don't understand why dogs on leashes are allowed anywhere in Petrified Forest National Park, they are not allowed on the trails in Saguaro National Park.