America’s Deepest, Darkest and Grizzliest National Parks
Adventure Travel, United States — By Amanda P on March 31, 2010 at 12:00 pm
Source: www.nps.gov
by Amanda Pressner
LG Executive Editor
Last year, Americans logged more than 285 million visits to our National Parks-that’s just 10 million tickets shy of the most visits ever since the Nat’l Park Service started in 1916. Of course, the biggest and most famous ones (Grand Canyon, Yosemite, etc) get the most traffic, but who wants to feel like they’re fighting for a parking spot-not to mention a little breathing room-in order to experience the natural wonders that our great country has to offer?
That’s why this month, the AARP The Magazine (www.aarp.org) published a special feature on America’s “National Parks Less Traveled.” The magazine dug deeper to find the top parks that excel in one surprising, spectacular category, from starry skies to soggy ferns, from deep water to daunting dunes. We’ve published some of the cooler superlatives, below. Read on for ideas of where to go-and possibly where to skip!-when road tripping this summer.
Smallest National Park: Hot Springs, Arkansas
At a mere 5,549 acres, Hot Springs could fit into the largest national park, 8.3 million-acre Wrangell-St. E Elias in Alaska, 1,500 times. This little slice of Arkansas protects 47 thermal springs.
Most Bears: Great Smoky Mountains, Tennessee
The park boasts an average of two black bear per square mile. In the fall, so many bears frequent Cades Cove – an open valley overflowing with grapevines, blackberries, and acorns – that cars of gawking tourist along its 11-mile loop road cause “bear jams.” Best time to go is a weekday morning.
Wettest: Olympic, Washington
With 12 feet of annual precipitation, Olympic’s Hoh Rain Forest easily wins the soggy test. Hoh is awash in lush ferns, moss, and lichens. New growth on fallen trees, called nurse logs, starts to sprout seemingly overnight, particularly in early spring when, though it’s still wet and chilly, the leaves are beginning to bud and the rain forest is at its greenest.
Deepest: Crater Lake, Oregon
Set inside a volcanic basin, Crater is 1,943 feet deep, making it the country’s deepest lake – and the seventh-deepest in the world. Fed almost entirely by snowfall, the water is ink-blue and incredibly pure.
Darkest: Big Bend, Texas
Experts at both the International Dark-Sky Association and the National Park Service’s Night Sky Program agree that a relatively cloud-free atmosphere and ultra remote desert location give this Texas park one of the nation’s darkest skies for stargazing
Least Visited: Kobuk Valley, Alaska
Only 1,565 people visited this national park in 2008. To compare, 4.4 million people visit the Grand Canyon annually. Kobuk is north of the Arctic Circle and accessible exclusively by airplane, boat, or snowmobile. For those who make the trek, they never forget its spectacular expanse of white desert sand dunes surrounded by tundra forest. PLUS – a half million caribou migrate across the Kobuk River every year.
Tags: Big Bend, Crater Lake, Great Smoky Mountains, Hoh Rain Forest, hot springs, Kobuk Valley, national parks
Tweet This
Digg This
Save to delicious
Stumble it
RSS Feed
3 Comments
Hi all, i´m from france so my english knowledge isnt that goodish. Please dont blame me. I try to read online journals to make my english better and i just want to say that your blog was perfect readable for me, because the english is really great and all the article are perfect readable. I will keep on reading it, to improve my english even more. Thanks a lot 🙂
Simply desire to say your article is as surprising. The clarity to your put up is just great and that i could assume you’re knowledgeable on this subject. Well along with your permission let me to snatch your feed to stay up to date with approaching post. Thanks 1,000,000 and please keep up the enjoyable work.
Buy one for your neighbour and race them along the path
or use Big Trak to send messages to your
wife in the other room. An actual yellow screen of death,
which is non-Play – Station relevant, can occur when an ASP.
Seybold again denied pretty much any rumors that the Sony credit trading card
database had proved to be put up purchase and assured
diners that the company is working with criminal court officials and forensic experts to amounts culprit behind often the attacks.