As the day wears on, the parked cars start sprawling into the adjacent town of Springdale. However, this solution resulted in a parking nightmare at the base of the canyon, where people leave their vehicles for hours on end at the visitor center. Zion’s been plagued with overcrowding for years now, and in an effort to combat the overcrowding, Zion implemented a mandatory shuttle bus for those wishing to visit the canyon in the peak season.

In Zion National Park, we waited in a long line at the eastern entrance only find “no room at the inn” when we reached the visitor center parking lot.

Say what you will about the Forest Service’s management plan for the BWCAW and the somewhat manufactured sense of wilderness it creates, but limiting the amount of people who can be in a certain area at a certain time often does translate into an elevated experience. Our time in the National Parks last month also made us really appreciate the quota system that regulates visitor usage in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. When we climbed into the southeastern Sierrra Nevadas in Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks, the large parking lots at the General Sherman Tree and Grant Grove unwittingly made it seem like some trees were worth looking at and others, not so much, even though we were surrounded by spectacular views and towering sequoias and it was all worth taking in. Because the National Park system does, it can sometimes feel that an element of discovery is missing in national parks – like you’re seeing the park on someone else’s terms. In the Death Valley Sand Dunes, we walked in 94 degree heat under the watchful eye of a paramedic park ranger who scanned the horizon of the dunes with binoculars, watching for potential heat exhaustion victims.įor better or worse, the BWCA doesn’t emphasize accessibility. This can sound scary, but what’s more off-putting: having to travel a little more carefully, or having a park ranger stationed every so often along your route watching you with binoculars in case of emergency? In the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, you travel at your own risk. On this trip, we saw so many amazing sights thanks to the National Park Service’s preservation work, but we also realized a lot of things that we’re thankful for in the Boundary Waters. the National Park Service’s more hand-holding approach of pointing out every panoramic view worth taking a photo at and their focus on accessibility. Forest Service approach to land management of “hey, here’s some sweet woods you might want to check out at your own risk” vs.

We’re pretty down with the idea that there are so many places in America that are too special to belong to just a handful of people and should instead be made available to the masses. Like every kid from northeastern Minnesota, Andy and I have spent a lot of time on public land – mainly land managed by the Forest Service as National Forest. There’s always a bit of culture shock when we roll into a National Park. We’d planned to head towards one of the many (many!) National Parks within a day’s drive of Vegas. In the end, we headed west and within three hours, we were buying an “ America the Beautiful” pass at the Furnace Creek Visitor Center in Death Valley National Park. Our very loose travel plan involved flying into Las Vegas, spending the night, picking up a rental car and getting the hee-haw out of Sin City. Serendipitously, we’d planned to travel for a week and a half at the end of April and we drove to the Duluth International Airport in 34 degree weather and a light rain. After an exceptionally beautiful start to April, the weather turned decidedly “April-ish” right around Easter.

Boundary water park