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A National Park Visiting Wish List for 2010

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Hikers enjoying Canyonlands. Will it be my turn in May? NPS photo.

As some Traveler readers may recall, I vowed to visit five national parks last year -- Death Valley, Mesa Verde, Great Sand Dunes, and Theodore Roosevelt National Parks, plus Cowpens National Battlefield. While I did manage to move the first three over to the plus side of the ledger, the latter two eluded me….. again. That’s embarrassing.

OK; maybe I can forgive myself for not traveling way out to western North Dakota to visit the Theodore Roosevelt, but how on earth do I explain Cowpens? I’ve let another year slip by without visiting an interesting park that’s less than a two-hour drive from my house. There’s no excuse for that, and so I will offer none.

By way of mitigation, I did manage to sneak in one extra West Coast trip that added two outstanding parks to my resume – Redwood National and State Parks and Crater Lake National Park. – in addition to an impromptu detour in Colorado that took me to Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park (and to new heights of acrophobic anxiety). That’s six new national parks for me in 2009, which is much better than my average. I’ll take it.

As for 2010, well, it looks like this is going to be a “something old, something new” sort of park-visiting year for me. In early April, the Good Lord willing, Colorado Jim and I are going to do a Coastal Carolina Dumb & Dumber trip that will take us from Savannah to Charleston to Kitty Hawk and include visits to Fort Pulaski National Monument, Fort Sumter National Monument, Cape Hatteras National Seashore, Wright Brothers National Memorial, and Fort Raleigh National Historic Site.

I’ve visited all of those parks before, but Jim hasn’t, and that makes all the difference. Anyone who’s ever had a first-timer with him when he’s visited a familiar park can tell you that it adds fresh interest to the experience. I know that I’m really looking forward to revisiting some of the thoughts and feelings that made my own first visit to these places so very special.

The shoe will be on the other foot in May when Traveler editor Kurt Repanshek takes me in tow to Arches National Park, Canyonlands National Park, Capitol Reef National Park, and Natural Bridges National Monument. Although I’ve studied and written about each of those fine parks, I’ve yet to set foot in any of them. I’m way overdue.

Summer and fall are spoken for with three 50th high school reunions to attend in Michigan (don’t ask), a South Dakota hunting trip, and other commitments, so that will pretty much wrap it up. Except for this: I will visit Cowpens National Battlefield this year – no ifs, ands, buts, maybes, or other weaselspeak.

Adding it up, I see five new parks and five old friends on the near horizon. A guy could do a lot worse.

Postscript: Let’s say I had visited Black Canyon of the Gunnison when it was still designated as a national monument, maybe during a trip taken while I was in Colorado for a national conference back in the 1980s. Would I still, in good conscience, be able to count a visit to Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park as a brand new addition to my resume? This is purely hypothetical, of course.

Comments

Ranger Will wrote:

As a student hire in the Smokies I've got a lot of good stuff going for me. One being I still get to have a Spring Break thanks to an amazing supervisor. Yes, she might read this but she already knows how much I enjoy working for her.

Very diplomatic, Will. If you decide not to pursue a career in the Park Service, you should consider working as a spokesweasel for a government agency, say the BLM.

Thanks for the enthusiastic feedback on Arches, et al. By all accounts, I'm in for a treat.


Bob--
If Kurt doesn't take you up the La Sal mountain loop while you're visiting Arches & Canyonlands, he's grossly negligent. I prefer a "half-loop" going out the back of Sand Flats, then coming out Castle Valley. While you're there, spend the couple of hours to hike up to Fisher Towers, even if it is BLM and not NPS.

I get to Canyonlands every year; I'd like to add a few days at Capital Reef. My goal for Capital Reef includes going out the back to visit Grand Staircase Escalante NM, even though it is administered by BLM, and some of the northwest shore of Glenn Canyon. I'm also angling to get to Olympic, North Cascades, & Mount Ranier, but that's work-related. But first I need to swing by a small, underfunded NPS unit to purchase my new annual pass and give them the local unit cut of the price, probably either Florissant Fossil Beds or Sand Creek Massacre.


I don't yet know what Kurt's got in mind, tomp, but those sound like fine ideas. Thanks for the suggestions. Buying your annual pass at an underfunded park sounds like a fine idea, too, but I think the passes can only be purchased at parks that charge an entrance fee. If that's the case, Florissant Fossil Beds is still in play, but Sand Creek is not. In any event, Sand Creek is closed for winter and won't reopen until April 1st.


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