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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsHow Crowded Are America's National Parks? See for Yourself.
(NYT) Largely freed from domestic travel restrictions, Americans have been flocking to national parks in record numbers this spring and summer. Several parks including Yellowstone National Park and Grand Teton National Park have already set monthly visitation records. Many sites are gearing up for their busiest years in history.
And so, in place of serenity, many visitors have instead found packed parking lots, congested trailheads, overrun campsites and interminable lines.
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Hikers at Zion National Park, in Utah, have faced wait times of four hours to access certain trails. Visitors to Arches National Park, in the same state, are being turned away at the gate The park is currently full, the Parks Services Twitter feed routinely announces and asked to return at a later time.
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To capture the crowds over the Fourth of July weekend, we sent photographers to four parks: Acadia National Park in Maine; Grand Canyon National Park in Arizona; Joshua Tree National Park in California; and Yellowstone National Park, largely in Wyoming. .........(more)
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/08/travel/crowded-national-parks.html?
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How Crowded Are America's National Parks? See for Yourself. (Original Post)
marmar
Jul 2021
OP
madaboutharry
(40,149 posts)1. There are beautiful not so famous smaller parks and
state parks to go camping where you can avoid such crowds. I went camping a few weeks ago at a small state park and it was rather quiet and we had a great time, even though it was way too hot.
Silent3
(15,018 posts)2. If tourists didn't focus mostly on a small set of famous sites...
...there's more than enough park land to avoid seeing very many human beings at all.
maxrandb
(15,188 posts)3. Go to Point Lobos State Park in California early in the morning
Better than any National Park I have ever been to.
bahboo
(16,234 posts)4. it is a fantastic place....
Zeitghost
(3,796 posts)5. There are plenty of places to get away,
But you need to be willing to walk or take some rough roads. Front country campsites require reservations months in advance, popular areas like Yosemite require 6 months to the day and a lot of luck. I'm leaving on a 6 day 50 mile Yosemite high country backpacking trip and don't expect to see a lot of people, maybe a couple each day.