OT: National Parks America's Best Idea - Documentary Film

[David Mac]

Dogpatch has the right of it, if you do a little planning you can enjoy the parks without dealing with the throngs of people so much.

Rule #1 - Go early. The general masses are lazy. They get up late, eat breakfast at one of the "popular" places or take their time about cooking a three course breakfast or even worse stay in a hotel or cabin outside the park and are already an hour behind the curve before they even start. Not that I have anything against the cabins, but they aren't condusive to getting on the trail early.

Rule #2 - Stay away from the big draws. We go to the GSMNP pretty regularly and avoid the crowds simply by staying away from Laurel Falls, Clingman's Dome, Cade's Cove and trails leading off from Newfound Gap or the Roaring Fork Motortrail. You can go to just about any other trail in the park or go early in the morning and meet only a handful of other people. Even camping is easy to come by most of the time if you go to Cosby, Greenbrier, or Twentymile.

Rule #3 - Avoid holiday weekends and summer vacation. Don't have kids in school? Then you can avoid the vacationers that do by going when school is in session. That will probably cut the crowds by 20-30% right there.

Rule #4 - Stay out of the Park. I know, that seems backwards, but the big parks like GSMNP and Yosimite have large tracts of NF land just outside the park proper that are just like the park itself...without the crowds. I've camped in Stanislaus NF, less than 20 minutes from Yosimite's main gate and been one of only two people in a 30 site campground during peak camping season. We hiked up Cheoah Bald from Nantahala Gorge back in May of this year and only saw one other group of people all day and that was after we intersected with the AT just short of the summit.

Do a little research and it's not hard to enjoy the National Parks.

David