Parkland Incognito

From coral skyscrapers to sandstone spires--eight unsung pilgrimage spots
By Bob Howells

National parks are like movies: There are your blockbusters (Yellowstone, Yosemite, Grand Canyon) and your sleepers--the ones that become cult classics. We're partial to these relatively undervisited parks because they're national parks as they were meant to be, before the age of computerized reservations, traffic jams, and tour trams. You can cruise in on a whim, snag a last-minute campsite, and be as alone as you want to be, and you won't end up wondering what it must have been like a hundred years ago. Because, we're happy to report, it's still exactly like that.

Capitol Reef National Park, UT
Established 1971
241,904 acres
Census: 606,000 visitors (backcountry, 365)

The Big Picture: A hundred miles of colorfully stratified rock in a dazzling array of formations: slickrock, cliffs, spires, monoliths, arches, and labyrinthine canyons.

The park looks like a giant rock reef in the Utah desert because of the 100-mile-long Waterpocket Fold, formed by the uplifting, bending, and erosion of sedimentary rock into a maze of parallel ridges. A four-hour drive south from Salt Lake City, it's larger than Bryce Canyon or Zion to the southwest, just as compelling, and far less visited. Even the relatively trafficked 20-mile crossing on Utah 24 is spectacular, with domes of white Navajo sandstone and vermilion cliffs of Wingate sandstone standing 1,000 feet above the Fremont River.

Jaw Dropper: Strike Valley Overlook, off Burr Trail Road, about 50 miles south of Utah 24. After a long canyon-bottom drive (a four-wheel-drive vehicle is essential) and a half-mile slickrock hike, you come to a high vantage where you can peer 50 miles north or south into the Fold.

Backcountry Sampler: Hike the Halls Creek Narrows, a seldom-trodden rival to the famous Zion Narrows. Pick up a map at the visitor center off Utah 24 and drive 54 miles south on unpaved Notom-Bullfrog Road to Halls Creek Overlook. Register at the trailhead and drop down 1.2 miles to an open canyon, where sandstone potholes at Fountain Tanks sometimes collect water enough to lure bighorn sheep, coyotes, and cougars. You should carry at least a two-day supply of water (two gallons per person). Camp 7.5 miles up-trail, where an obvious opening in the canyon wall indicates the mouth of the Narrows. This will be your base camp for the next day's hike-and-splash through the Narrows; watch out for quicksand. In some places, 1,000-foot cliffs loom so close that you can span the defile with your arms outstretched. After three miles, a 1.5-mile dry-land trail leads back to base camp.

Local Wisdom: There's good pickin' at Fruita, where the Park Service maintains extensive orchards. Munch on apples, peaches, pears, apricots, and cherries while you hike, and carry some out (pay by the bushel or pound) for the rest of your trip.

Information: Capitol Reef National Park, Torrey, UT; 801-425-3791.

Dry Tortugas National Park, FL
Established 1992
64,700 acres (40 acres dry land)
Census: 16,736 visitors

The Big Picture: Coral reefs, shoals, and a sere archipelago shimmering in the clear, multihued Gulf of Mexico 70 miles west of Key West.

Dry Tortugas, one of the country's newest national parks, is so overlooked that it gets lopped off most U.S. and Florida maps, which end at the Florida Keys. But there are good reasons to venture beyond Margaritaville. One is superb diving and snorkeling--the Tortugas have healthier coral reefs than anywhere in the Caribbean, plus some 200 eerily inviting shipwrecks. The convocations of migrating birds are astounding--notably the 100,000 or so sooty terns that nest on Bush Key from April through September. Then there's the huge, hulking presence of Fort Jefferson, on Garden Key, the most useless military facility ever built (it was strategically obsolete before it was finished in the 1860s).

Most visitors come by seaplane from Key West ($159 per person, via Key West Seaplane, 305-294-6978) for a half-day at the fort and maybe some snorkeling (the park will loan out masks and fins). Or take a day boat down ($75, via the Yankee Fleet out of Key West, 800-634-0939). In either case, you can arrange to extend your stay on Garden Key, where there's a visitor center and a no-facilities, no-water, first-come-first-served campground.

Jaw Dropper: Tortugas Banks, westernmost atoll of the Tortugas, a complex of coral skyscrapers 75 to 100 feet high.

Backcountry Sampler: Short of cruising in your own boat for a few days with a sea kayak for a dinghy, the best way to see more of the Tortugas is to charter a boat with a captain (try Sea-Clusive Charters out of Pine Key, about $150 per person per day; 305-872-3940). Day one will include the 3.5-hour crossing, the obligatory tour of the fort, and possibly some casting for grouper or snapper. Day two might involve diving or snorkeling around Loggerhead Key, where there's a pristine reef called Little Africa (teeming with smallmouth grunts, barracuda, and occasionally sea turtles), the wreck of a Spanish galleon, and the bones of the iron-hulled windjammer Avanti. There's even better diving on the return trip: Texas Rock and Texas Rock North, with their extraordinary unbleached coral.

Local Wisdom: Winter may be high season elsewhere in Florida, but not here; the water can be choppy and dense with plankton. Diving visibility and birding are best in spring and summer.

Information: Dry Tortugas National Park, Box 6208, Key West, FL 33041; 305-242-7700.

Petrified Forest National Park, AZ
Established 1962
93,533 acres
Census: 900,000 visitors (backcountry, 907)

The Big Picture: A Painted Desert landscape of barren mauve mounds and multicolored clay and sandstone mesas littered with brightly mineralized petrified logs.

Don't fret the stats--the vast majority of visitors stumble on Petrified Forest on their way to or from the Grand Canyon (200 miles northwest), stop long enough to see a few Medusa-ized logs, and then move on. The trees are worth a look--the best place is in the south part of the park, in Rainbow Forest, where you'll see a log with the understated name of Old Faithful (nine and a half feet in diameter) and others, as long as 170 feet, piled like raw spaghetti.

Petrified wood is an intriguing phenomenon, but it's the Painted Desert that most impresses: The northbound park road leads past the Tepees--cone-shaped mounds of mudstone--and then traces a volcanic rim with open-air views of red-rock mesas and slopes as colorful as Navajo rugs.

Jaw Dropper: Devil's Playground, a brilliantly colored, wildly eroded badlands about six miles west of Kachina Point, in the Painted Desert Wilderness.

Backcountry Sampler: You won't find water or hiking trails when you head out into the Painted Desert Wilderness from Kachina Point. Register, and pick up maps and a free camping permit, at the Painted Desert Visitor Center, just off I-40. Then load up with plenty of water and pick your way across steep clay hills toward the obvious landmark of Pilot Rock, seven miles northwest. It's an easy climb up the igneous rock bluff (6,235 feet), which has a spectacular view of the San Francisco Peaks to the west, the Hopi mesas to the northwest, and Navajo country to the north. The next day, follow Digger Wash to Chinde Mesa, four miles east. Finally, head due south through Black Forest (dark fossilized wood) to Onyx Bridge (a large petrified log that spans a gully) and back to Kachina Point. With a little deft map-and-compass work along the way, you'll find the petroglyphs and Indian ruins marked on your topo map.

Local Wisdom: Summer thunderstorms bring out Painted Desert colors but also make foot travel across the bentonite clay a stick-to-your-boots mess--and make you a lightning rod. If the weather looks threatening, hold your hike for a day or two; check with the Painted Desert Visitor Center for updates.

Information: Box 2217, Petrified Forest National Park, AZ 86028; 520-524-6228.

North Cascades National Park, WA
Established 1968
684,000 acres
Census: 406,000 visitors (backcountry, 19,000)

The Big Picture: Called America's Alps, a mostly wilderness realm of serrated peaks spackled with 318 glaciers, 248 lakes, old-growth forests, and subalpine meadows, deep green and variegated with wildflowers in summer.

The park is broken down into a North Unit, a South Unit, and two national recreation areas: Ross Lake National Recreation Area and the spectacular North Cascades Highway (Washington 20) bisect the park, and Lake Chelan National Recreation Area is at its southern fringe, reachable by ferry from the town of Chelan. But forget the bureaucratic garble and think of it as a single park--one that gets a fraction of the traffic of Mount Rainier and Olympic National Parks. Ninety percent of visitors merely pass through on the highway, getting a car-seat hint of the wilderness within: The Skagit River is jade-green with glacial flour, and Washington Pass Overlook reveals peaks like Liberty Bell (7,808 feet) and Early Winter Spires (7,600 feet), trophies for technical climbers.

Jaw Dropper: The view from Sourdough Mountain Lookout, a tough, five-mile, 5,000-foot-climb from a trailhead in the settlement of Diablo, off Washington 20. The surrounding peaks look like rows of waves in a frothy sea.

Backcountry Sampler: To make the five-day, 46-mile round-trip to Desolation Peak, hike the 16-mile East Bank Trail (the trailhead is near milepost 138 on Washington 20), an easy to moderate path through stands of old-growth conifers above Ross Lake. Camp along the trail the first night, and then at Lightning Camp, near the base of the Desolation Trail, before the brutal 4,500-foot day-slog up Desolation Peak; Jack Kerouac's stint as a lookout here fired his wilderness epiphanies in Desolation Angels. To cut the trip to 14 miles, take a water taxi to Desolation Trail from Ross Lake Resort ($45; 206-386-4437).

Local Wisdom: The nerve center for backcountry advice is the Wilderness Information Office in Marblemount, five miles southwest of the park boundary on Washington 20, where rangers and climbers convene to share weather and trail-condition information and bear stories. This is also the place to pick up wilderness camping permits. Call 360-873-4590.

Information: North Cascades National Park, 2105 State Route 20, Sedro Woolley, WA 98284; 360-856-5700.

Theodore Roosevelt National Park, ND
Established 1947
70,446 acres
Census: 512,000 visitors (backcountry 2,000)

The Big Picture: A deeply corrugated landscape, 135 miles west of Bismarck, where the Little Missouri River and its tributaries have capriciously turned grassy plains into a 3-D geologic glossary: buttes, gorges, gullies, domes, cliffs, and spires, all bearing the multicolored striation of eroded sedimentary rock.

These badlands are every bit as ornery as those of the other Dakota--just far less visited by Rushmore-bound hordes. Young Theodore Roosevelt came here in 1883 to hunt bison and stayed several years as a luckless cattle rancher. Because the park's South Unit is contiguous to I-94, most visitors pull off the interstate for a quick glance and move on (the best place to view elk and bison is, in fact, along the highway). Only about 50,000 visitors venture to the North Unit, 45 miles north of the interstate. This park has 50 miles of scenic drives: Watch for river-bottom wildflowers and interludes of grass that serve as cud for the bison and elk and as condo fodder for the park's other showcase mammal, the black-tailed prairie dog.

Jaw Dropper: River Bend Overlook, in the North Unit, on the edge of the Little Missouri's deep valley. Late in the day, the colors glow: red caprock, blue bentonite, reddish-brown scoria, black lignite coal.

Backcountry Sampler: Even the shortest walk off the scenic drives gets you into soul-stirring solitude. Carry plenty of water to do the two-day, 16-mile Petrified Forest Loop, which starts at Peaceful Valley Ranch, off the scenic loop in the South Unit. Ford the river and start up a coulee to a plateau, continue through a prairie dog town, and watch for wild horses and pronghorns. (A warning: Don't feed the prairie dogs--they bite.) Also keep an eye out for hoodoos--rain-carved pillars of earth three inches to ten feet high--and for petrified cousins of modern redwoods. Alternatively, climb up on the saddle for an all-day ride or overnight trip with Peaceful Valley Trail Rides, based at the ranch ($40-$45 per person; 701-623-4496).

Local Wisdom: Pay homage to T.R. by making your way to his Elkhorn Ranch, a seldom-visited and blessedly unimproved site between the park's other two units. The reward is a jumble of foundation stones beneath some rustling cottonwoods and a sense of spaciousness that no doubt fired Roosevelt's conservationist zeal.

Information: Theodore Roosevelt National Park, Box 7, Medora, ND 58645; 701-623-4466.

Guadalupe Mountains National Park, TX
Established 1972
86,416 acres
Census: 203,000 visitors (backcountry, 4,115)

The Big Picture: Rocky massif, 110 miles east of El Paso, that rises abruptly from the Chihuahuan Desert, harboring lush, steep-walled canyons, and dry piñon and Douglas fir woodlands.

The Guadalupe Mountains are part of one of the most impressive fossil reefs in the world (the park's much more famous neighbor, New Mexico's Carlsbad Caverns, is actually a giant hole in the same limestone reef). Many visitors are Carlsbad-bound tourists who wander in accidentally and take a day hike to places like Smith Spring (2.3 miles round-trip), a ferny, oak-shaded desert oasis. A better short outing, which allows you to see exposed layers of the reef and its fossils, is the Permian Reef Geology Trail, in McKittrick Canyon, a deciduous-shaded corridor into the heart of the reef. Few ever see the park's mountain backcountry, though a smattering of peak-baggers, intent on reaching the highest point in Texas, make the 8.4-mile round-trip to tag 8,749-foot Guadalupe Peak.

Jaw Dropper: Late-afternoon view of changing light and shadows on El Capitan, the southern terminus of the Guadalupe Mountains, from Guadalupe Pass.

Backcountry Sampler: You won't have much company on a three-day Guadalupe Mountains trek from Pine Springs Campground to McKittrick Canyon, a trip that requires a 12-mile car shuttle and the schlepping of a two-day water supply. Start up the Tejas Trail and make camp five miles later in a Douglas fir forest at the amenity-free Pine Top Campground (free camping permits are available at the visitor center in Pine Springs). The next day, hike out to 8,631-foot Bush Mountain and onto Blue Ridge, where forests give way to huge views of the flatlands a vertical mile below. Your run-out is a forested, undulating trail that drops into McKittrick Canyon, a 3,000-foot cleft in the limestone, full of maples, walnuts, oaks, songbirds, and the odd black bear or bobcat.

Local Wisdom: Fall in McKittrick Canyon is a Technicolor spectacle the last two weeks of October and the first week of November.

Information: Guadalupe Mountains National Park, HC60, Box 400, Salt Flat, TX 79847; 915-828-3251.

Voyageurs National Park, MN
Established 1975
218,054 acres
Census: 240,000 visitors (backcountry, 16,800)

The Big Picture: A forested convolution of 30 lakes, 900 islands, and thousands of miles of rocky shoreline along the Minnesota-Ontario border.

Two geographical matters keep visitation to Voyageurs low. For one, its remote setting, 275 miles north of the Twin Cities, is hardly on anyone's cross-country itinerary. Second, since Voyageurs is a water park, 55 miles long and about ten miles wide, you need a boat or canoe to get around. If you don't bring your own, base yourself in one of the rustic private lodges near the park's Kabetogama Lake Visitor Center, 25 miles southeast of International Falls--many supply a small fishing boat with your cabin ($300-$650 per week; call Kabetogama Lake Association, 800-524-9085). Another option is to rent a houseboat from Minnesota Voyageur Houseboats in Ash River, 15 miles east of Kabetogama (about $210 per night for one that sleeps two or three; 800-253-5475). Get good maps from the visitor center, inquire about walleye fishing, and go ashore to explore forests, beaver ponds, and moose bogs.

Jaw Dropper: Time your trip for the mid-August sight and scent of hundreds of white water-lilies in bloom in the wide channel between War Club and Quill Lakes; take a day trip from Woodenfrog Campground (five miles north of Kabetogama) via Locator Lake.

Backcountry Sampler: Paddle and hike your way from the southern to the northern part of the park from Ash River to Rainy Lake. Rent a canoe at Ash Trail Lodge ($15 per day; reserve two to three weeks in advance; 800-777-4513), paddle across Sullivan Bay to the Lost Lake trailhead, portage an eighth of a mile to Long Slu, and paddle to the east end of Lost Bay. Stash your rig there and hike four and a half miles to Cruiser Lake--true boonies visited by fewer than 50 people a year. (The Park Service has free canoes here for your use, but you'll need a key to borrow one; pick it up at the Ash River Visitor Center before your trip.) The next day, hike 4.5 miles up to Anderson Bay on Rainy Lake, where a rocky ridge serves up a rare vantage of the pancake-flat lake-and-woods wonderland. Then retrace your route.

Local Wisdom: Try to stay inside your tightly sealed tent from a half-hour before sunset until morning to avoid bloodthirsty mosquitoes.

Information: Voyageurs National Park, 3131 Highway 53, International Falls, MN 56649; 218-283-9821.

Great Basin National Park, NV
Established 1986
77,100 acres
Census: 88,024 visitors (backcountry, 7,860)

The Big Picture: A mountain island jutting from a sea of sagebrush 286 miles north of Las Vegas, with 13,000-foot peaks, limestone-and-marble caverns, and the world's oldest trees.

Despite its name, this is a mountain park. It comprises the southern half of the Snake Range, including 13,063-foot Wheeler Peak, Nevada's second highest, and miles of seldom-used trails to backcountry lakes and meadows, but little of the basin itself, which spreads below like a vast sagebrush stoop. The former Lehman Cave National Monument, now part of Great Basin, is the park's primary visitor lure. After the cave tour, most people head up a stellar 12-mile scenic route that climbs to 10,000 feet and then turn back, not realizing that the road's terminus is a trailhead for great day hikes. The three-mile Alpine Lakes Loop Trail runs by Stella and Teresa Lakes en route to a stand of ancient bristlecone pines, and the Wheeler Summit Trail, a five-mile offshoot, climbs a ridge above the lakes and leads 3,000 feet to the peak. At the opposite end of the park, it's worth the 35-mile drive south from the visitor center to reach Lexington Arch, a 60-foot-high limestone span.

Jaw Dropper: Baker Lake at dawn--a sedate mirror for its bone-colored walls, the surrounding Englemann spruces, and the orange sky above.

Backcountry Sampler: A classic loop starts at the top of Baker Creek Road off the park entrance road. Hike up the creek's drainage to Baker Lake, nestled in a high cirque, set up camp, and plan on tackling 12,298-foot Baker Peak after a night's rest. The gung-ho among you can continue up a talus ridge to the back side of Wheeler. Next day, hike across a saddle to Johnson Lake, and then descend the little-maintained Timber Creek Trail (easy to follow with a little map-reading acuity) back to your car.

Local Wisdom: The piñon nuts of the Snake Range are some of the biggest and tastiest in the West. Just pluck the pitchy cones--the trees flourish between 6,000 and 8,500 feet--and chow down.

Information: Great Basin National Park, Baker, NV89311; 702-234-7331.

Bob Howells is a frequent contributor to Outside.