Since White Sands National Monument was upgraded to the 62nd National Park on December 20, 2019, we decided to update our guidebook to the parks. If you already bought your copy on Amazon, please find the new page 308 posted below. White Sands is one of our favorite of the many National Park Service units in New Mexico. You can read more about the park on this blog.
White Sands
New Mexico
148,558 acres
Established 2019
603,008 visitors in 2018
Dunes composed of gypsum make a great destination for snow sledding year round, especially when the sand is wet. Gypsum readily dissolves in water, but here it forms dunes because no river drains the Tularosa Basin. Follow markers on the five-mile roundtrip Alkali Flat Trail that goes up and down dunes and provides views of the San Andres Mountains. Most of the wildlife here is nocturnal, but during the day you may spot bleached earless lizards that evolved to camouflage in the gypsum. The white dunes take on the colors of the sunset if you attend the ranger-guided Sunset Stroll or backpack camp. There is no campground and only ten backcountry campsites, and their availability is dependent upon whether the military is conducting missile tests overnight, so call ahead or check the schedule online. Oliver Lee Memorial State Park offers a full service campground in a beautiful setting south of Alamogordo, New Mexico.
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Bryce Canyon is not really a canyon at all, but instead a cliffside amphitheater eroded away into extravagant creamsicle-colored hoodoos. Your first view from Sunrise or Sunset Point will surely take your breath away and not just because you are standing above 7,000 feet in elevation. A portion of the main park road is only open during the busy summer season, but seeing the amphitheater under a fresh carpet of white snow makes the effort worthwhile to get here in the winter. Learn more about the logistics of a winter visit in our first travel guidebook to the National Parks (available on Amazon).
Highlights
Sunrise Point, Sunset Point, Navajo Loop Trail, Queens Garden Trail, Natural Bridge, Rainbow Point
Must-Do Activity
The amphitheater is beautiful from the overlooks, but to really experience this park you have to hike down from the rim. Peakaboo Loop is a strenuous four-mile hike with approximately 1,700 feet cumulative elevation gain that offers up close views of the hoodoos. It is accessed from Sunset Point or Bryce Point. You could easily spend your whole trip in this northern section of the park and not be disappointed, but be sure to take a slow drive south with stops at Natural Bridge and Rainbow Point to complete the experience.
Best Trail
It is four miles out and back on the Under-the-Rim Trail from Bryce Point to the Hat Shop, in the quiet backcountry area where hoodoos are topped with boulders (like they are wearing hats). Ask a park ranger about the “I Hiked the Hoodoos” program to earn a prize.
Instagram-worthy Photo
Douglas-fir trees snake their way to the light in the narrow Wall Street section of the Navajo Loop Trail. A photograph of Tiff walking into a snowy Wall Street made the cover (see below) of our first travel guidebook to the National Parks (available on Amazon).
Peak Season
Summer due to long, snowy winters at this elevation.
The main park road is paved, but there are dirt roads that access the lower elevations of the park, though we have been warned that they are in rough shape.
Camping
The National Park Service has a campground that is open year round, but we prefer camping along the dirt roads in adjacent Dixie National Forest. A free permit is required to camp in Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument.
This design we created to celebrate Bryce Canyon National Park is available on a variety of products at Cafe Press and Amazon.
Explore More – Who described Bryce Canyon as “a hell of a place to lose a cow?”
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We recently published our expanded 2nd edition of our guidebook to the 63 National Parks (available on Amazon), so we thought it would be a good time to rank our favorite museums in the parks. The National Parks typically stick with the “go outside and play” philosophy, but these selected parks do a great job of interpreting human and natural history inside a museum. Our photograph options are limited and mainly include Wondon the Traveling Bunny (who has his own blog). We will rank our Top 10 museums in other National Park Service (NPS) units in a future list (check out all our Top 10 Lists here).
Sugarlands Visitor Center has a nice natural history museum,
plus the historic structures at Cataloochee, Elkmont, and Cades Cove serve as
outdoor museums.
If this is your first visit, after you buy your tour tickets at the park entrance head directly to the Chapin Mesa Museum that overlooks the ruins of Spruce Tree House.
Great Basin Visitor Center is in Baker, outside the park
boundaries, but it is worth a stop to see a cross-section of Prometheus, a
nearly 5,000-year-old bristlecone pine tree.
Ernest F. Coe Visitor Center is home to an excellent museum interpreting the natural history of the “river of grass.”
6. Cuyahoga Valley National Park (Ohio)
Boston Store and Canal Visitor Centers both have excellent
hands-on exhibits and, taking a page from Parks Canada, you can play dress-up,
too.
5. Gateway Arch National Park (Missouri)
Part of the reason this became a National Park in 2018 was due to the opening of its new museum beneath the arch, but do not miss a visit inside the colorful Old Courthouse.
There are great exhibits on wildlife at Denali Visitor Center near the park entrance and Eielson Visitor Center at Mile 66 on the main park road (only accessible by bus).
3. Hot Springs National Park (Arkansas)
Fordyce Bathhouse on Central Avenue is now entirely a museum with multiple stories of exhibits and plenty of stories to tell.
Learn all about the Yellowstone Supervolcano at Old Faithful and Canyon Village Visitor Centers, but also check out the Museum of the National Park Ranger near Norris Junction.
Honorable Mentions
Wind Cave National Park (South Dakota)
It can be easy to miss the museum that is downstairs from the park bookstore and tour ticket booth, so do not make that rookie mistake.
The Main Park Visitor Center is located on the Richardson
Highway, but the main attraction requires you to brave the drive to McCarthy
and cross the pedestrian bridge to the Kennecott ghost town.
Acadia National Park in Maine is famous for its 45 miles of Carriage Roads and watching a sunrise from atop 1,530-foot tall Cadillac Mountain. We recommend you plan your visit around attending a Star Party to view the night sky through dozens of telescopes. We visited on a September weekend, and even though it was not yet leaf-peeping season, the main park road across Mount Desert Island was jam packed and parking spaces were difficult to come by. [This is also one of 50 National Parks covered in our new guidebook]
Highlights
Cadillac Mountain, Precipice Trail, Bass Harbor Head
Lighthouse
Must-Do Activity
If you don’t like crowds, then visit on a weekday and avoid
Cadillac Mountain, Bar Harbor, Precipice Trailhead, Thunder Hole, Jordan Pond
House, and Bass Harbor Head Lighthouse.
We preferred our time spent on the Schoodic Peninsula with its nice
campground and unoccupied overlooks across the bay towards busy Mount Desert
Island.
Best Trail
Iron rungs and ladders assist those who wish to climb the
aptly named Precipice Trail. The trail
provides awesome Atlantic Ocean views from the cliffs on the way up to
Champlain Mountain. A 2.5-mile loop can
be formed when combined with Champlain North Ridge and Orange & Black
Trails. Other “ladder trails” in the
park include the Beehive and Perpendicular Trails.
Instagram-worthy
Photo
Photographers hang out for hours waiting for sunset on the rocks below Bass Harbor Head Lighthouse.
View towards Mount Desert Island from Schoodic Point
Raven about the park
This design we created to celebrate Acadia National Park is available on a variety of products at Cafe Press and Amazon.
Cafe Press
Explore More – What was the original name of this park when it was created on February 26, 1919 (the same day as Grand Canyon National Park)?
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Every major travel publisher (Fodors, Moon, Lonely Planet) has a guidebook to America’s National Parks, which all say the same things about where to go. We recently published our first book to offer alternatives for those readers seeking to have unique National Park adventures. You might guess where that one ended up on our Top 10 list, but we also recommend the following guidebooks.
Brief descriptions of parks in a variety of categories introduce readers to units in the National Park Service (NPS) system beyond the 62 National Parks.
This full-color, graphic-oriented children’s book is perfect for anyone collecting the 56 quarters in the U.S. Mint’s America the Beautiful collection.
Raven About The Parks 