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Status:
"Pickleball-Free American"
(set 3 days ago)
Location: St Simons Island, GA
23,462 posts, read 44,090,617 times
Reputation: 16856
Quote:
Originally Posted by Widowmaker2k
Hmm, I voted for Yosemite, but really meant Yosemite/Kings Canyon/Sequoia, as they are all adjacent to each other and contain some of the most stunning mountainous scenery in the country (Yosemite Falls, Mount Whitney, the largest trees on earth).
I second that...one of the best vacations my family ever had was at the Ahwahnee.
Sequoia + Kings Canyon. They border each other so they may as well be one. Yosemite is nice but full of too many day-trippers on vacation in SF. You don't get as much of a secluded outdoors experience.
Carlsbad Caverns National Park in Carlsbad, New Mexico
Seconded.
I did an internship there so it's kinda personal. But it really is an amazing place and there was so much to find even when you're there for 3 months! Did you get to do any off the off-trail caves when you were there, bradly?
I love ALLL the national parks I've got the chance to go to though and love to see other people enjoy them so much too.
Did you get to do any off the off-trail caves when you were there, bradly?
Yes sir. Some of My family lives in Carlsbad so they showed us everything to the place..It is pretty amazing! Plus I live in Northern New Mexico so I pretty much love my state to death.
The most popular national park in terms of actual attendance in the country is the Great Smoky Mountains in Tenn/NC. Why didn't you list it?
I definitely enjoyed Great Smokies a lot. Having come from Southern California, it's an enormous and welcome change in scenery to be seeing very green, lush mountains. Big Bear has forests but they pale in comparison to the Great Smokies vegetation. And it certainly is neat to visit the highest point in Tennessee, and the third highest peak East of the Mississippi. The clouds definitely do appear like mystic smoke and just flow and ebb in a way you seldom see anywhere else.
However, I think that on an objective level, the Grand Canyon or Yellowstone has more of a wow factor. The reason why the Grand Canyon or Yellowstone isn't as visited as the Great Smokies is because they're more isolated, whereas the Great Smokies is within a days drive from many major cities. If Yellowstone was as conveniently located as the Great Smokies, I think it would have even more visitors than the Smokies.
Then again, I prefer the weather in the Smokies over Yellowstone. It does not dip into the 30s on a typucal July night even on Clingmans Dome whereas it definitely will on the Yellowstone plateau. And because I've lived mist of my life in California, the Smokies just appear more exotic and have more novelty to me than Yellowstone does, because California's mountains are actually pretty similar in climate and vegetation to Yellowstone and the Tetons, whereas the Smokies are completely different from the Western mountains. Heck, California even has a mini Yellowstone called Lassen Volcanic Park.
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