A 1994 Nissan 300 ZX carried the Scotts on their 2002 lodge hopping trip/Courtesy

During the summer of 1996, we set out on a three-month road trip designed to visit as many national park lodges as possible. The goal was to gather information and photos for a book we had agreed to write for the Globe Pequot Press. The book would describe each of the lodges, with information about location, room types and rates, dining facilities, etc.  We envisioned a guide to offer travelers information that would help them identify, choose, and make reservations at lodges when planning a national park visit.

We had previously spent many summers exploring national parks while driving and sleeping in a series of four VW campers. During these trips we had actually stayed in only two lodges, Lake Hotel in Yellowstone, and Maswik North on Grand Canyon’s South Rim, both compliments of NBC for our appearances on the Today show.  All other nights in the parks were spent sleeping in our trusty (?) VW campers.

Although devoting considerable effort at identifying which parks had lodges, we overlooked several facilities, including Ross Lake Resort in North Cascades National Park, Buffalo Point in Buffalo National River, and the Inn at Brandywine Falls in Cuyahoga Valley National Recreation Area (now a national park). We did not have the time or money to pencil in Glacier Bay Lodge in Alaska or Volcano House in Hawaii. We also didn’t have time to visit Kettle Falls Hotel in Voyageurs National Park or Rock Harbor Lodge in Isle Royale National Park, both of which can be reached only with boat transportation.  For these we would have to rely on mail and telephone conversations.

Some lodges made the list because we mistakenly believed they were on national park land when they weren’t. We included Lake Quinault Lodge on the itinerary thinking it was in Olympic National Park.  After arriving we discovered the lodge was across Lake Quinault in Olympic National Forest.  At the time we didn’t know about private inholdings and figured any lodge within a national park’s outer boundary qualified as a national park lodge. Other lodges we initially believed were in national parks included Furnace Creek Inn and Furnace Creek Ranch, which are actually privately owned and on private land within Death Valley National Park. The same proved true for Glacier Park Lodge and Apgar Village Lodge in Glacier National Park in Montana. 

A stop at Lake Quinault Lodge brought out the celebrities to greet the Scotts.

The 1996 journey was a complicated trip, and making reservations proved a difficult task. We would generally be staying a single night in each lodge, and dates had to fit a schedule based on the mileage we could reasonably drive in a day. Nearly all the reservations were made on February 14 when our long-distance carrier, MCI, was offering free Valentine’s Day calls. 

To travel at a faster clip, we chose to leave the VW camper (a 1987 model) parked at home and drive our 1994 Nissan 300ZX. The trip would amount to nearly 11,000 miles, and VW buses are notoriously slow on mountain grades. Our earlier 1967 model was once unable to make the minimum interstate speed limit against an eastern Wyoming headwind. In truth, one of us (guess which) had yearned to drive a sports car on a major road trip since his long-ago Friday evenings in college watching “Route 66.” To reduce expenses we packed a Coleman cooler, propane stove, two backpacks stuffed with clothing, tent, ground cloth, sleeping pads, and blankets for tenting between lodge stays.  All this in the trunk of a Z! Pretty impressive, huh?

The 1996 trip’s first overnight national park lodging was at Chisos Mountains Lodge in Big Bend, a remote national park we had not previously visited. Our last stop before heading home was at Pisgah Inn on the Blue Ridge Parkway. Between these two points we stayed at lodges in Mesa Verde, Canyon de Chelly, Grand Canyon, Glen Canyon, Bryce Canyon, Zion, Death Valley, Sequoia, Kings Canyon, Yosemite, Lassen, Oregon Caves, Crater Lake, Mt. Rainier, Olympic, Glacier, Yellowstone, Grand Teton, Badlands, Ozark National Scenic Riverways, Mammoth Cave, and Shenandoah. 

It was quite a trip. We were in Death Valley on July 4 when the daytime temperature climbed above 120 degrees. Concessionaire employees organized a July 4th parade of golf carts at Furnace Creek Ranch before heading to an outdoor picnic that included food, drink, and games. We won a squirt gun in the three-legged race. While Furnace Creek Inn (now the Inn at Death Valley) at the time wasn’t open during summers, GM Cal Jepson was kind enough to take us on a tour of the building. 

Camping, such as Lake Roosevelt NRA, helped keep costs down for the Scotts.

Our next stop was Sequoia National Park, where we stayed in Giant Forest Lodge during its final season before being razed. Near the trip’s home stretch, fog at Big Meadows in Shenandoah was so thick we became lost while attempting to walk from the lodge to the campground.

We repeated the 1996 circuit five additional times - every three years - through 2011, when, as a concession to age, we started undertaking less lengthy trips. During one 2017 trip we visited each of the lodges in Yellowstone, Grand Teton, and Glacier national parks.   Both the long circuits and shorter trips offered opportunities to gather updated information and new photos for book revisions. They also allowed us to stay in lodges we had missed or only visited during the 1996 journey. The new stays included Glacier Bay Lodge, Ross Lake Resort, North Cascades Stehekin Lodge, Kettle Falls Hotel, Rock Harbor Lodge, and the Inn at Brandywine Falls.

During the last two decades we have stayed in all but a few of the national park lodges.  We have spent nights in each of the nine Yellowstone lodges, each of the three lodges in Shenandoah, each of the Glacier lodges, all but two lodges in Grand Teton (Triangle X requires a week stay and Jenny Lake Lodge is simply too expensive) and each of the lodges in Yosemite and Olympic national parks.

During our initial 1996 lodging trip, it was difficult to imagine existing lodges would close or additional park lodges would be constructed. We were, of course, wrong. 

Coming Sunday: We discuss lodges that have been added, along with those that have vanished since our 1996 road trip.

David and Kay Scott are authors of “Complete Guide to the National Park Lodges” (Globe Pequot).  Visit them at mypages.valdosta.edu/dlscott/Scott.html.