Visited: Saturday, December 16, 2023.
Meh. So - it didn't help any that Megan wasn't up for a hike, after walking through Carlsbad Caverns. But there really isn't all that much to do here besides hiking. The visitor center is pretty basic - no movie, a very small and static exhibit, and a small bookstore. No camping, but that's not our thing anyway. Not really any place to drive.
Pretty mountains, though.
Visited: Saturday, December 16, 2023.
Oh, my my...
1) I never heard about the drive to Carlsbad Caverns. Not one thing. But it is _gorgeous_. I'm not a big "pretty drive" person - I had all of two drives I've found so enjoyable I wanted to drive them again. (H3 in Hawaii and Bear Tooth Pass in Montana.) Well, now I have #3.
2) We only took the self-guided tour, because Megan's ankle is bothering her, and our timing wasn't right for seeing the bats. But it is phenomenal. I'm not a huge cave person, but I have visited a few - and this is miles above.
3) We went early, and - I cannot recommend going early strongly enough. It nearly felt like we had the place to ourselves, which is a great way to see the caverns. By the time we left, things were significantly busier - if not bad at all for a pretty December Saturday.
4) Once again, our trip concluded with the desire to go back again. There were multiple possibilities we ruled out because of Megan's ankle, and - I enjoyed the experience enough that coming back sounds like a fine idea. It's one of the challenges of visiting the NPS sites - many of them are so enjoyable that we want to come back, but going back is time spent not going to sites we haven't been to. So we try to be conservative with going back places. But Carlsbad Caverns is undoubtedly worth another visit.
Visited: Friday, December 15, 2023
Oh, my. Let's see...
1) White Sands was a national monument, not a national park, until 2019. It's still signed that way most places.
2) On Highway 380, you pass a turn-off to the Trinity site; perhaps the nicest patch at the White Sands bookstore is actually for the Trinity site.
3) The white sands themselves are treated as snow, effectively. They are plowed, they look like snow. A sandball does _not_ throw nearly as well as a snowball. On the other hand, sand slush is much more pleasant than snow slush.
4) Just before you get to Amalogordo, there is a tourist trap which definitely ensnared us. Pistachioland is advertised all the way up to Albuquerque - over three hours away. And it's - really, mostly just a gift store. With "the world's largest pistachio" statue out front. It's actually rather a nice gift store as such things go.
5) At white sands, the yucca plants survive by growing very, very tall. Which works fine until the sand drifts away, at which point the giant stalks collapse. You can see these at the sight; while the sight as a whole is great, this might be my single favorite fact about the site.
6) At the gift shop - just over from the bookstore - they sell sleds; we saw a number of folks sledding - or rather, attempting to sled - down the sand dunes. I know some can manage it - there are some sled tracks - but this isn't snow; it's not slippery. They sell wax at the gift shop to, which undoubtedly helps, but - you're still trying to get down a fairly grippy surface.
7) The Lincoln National Forest, East of White Sands, doesn't really look anything like a forest when you first enter. Over time, however, you see more and more (and more) trees, and it earns its name.
8) The movie, right next to the bookstore, is well worthwhile.
9) Given time, the thing we didn't do which most tempts is the sunset tour.
10) Almost forgot - driving along 380, there are four "roadside tables". Labelled as such, and literally tables - picnic tables? - with covers, and nothing else. I have no idea why these exist. But a "rest stop" was the same thing, but with _four_ covered tables. So - a roadside table is apparently 25% of a rest stop.
Visited: Thursday, December 14, 2023
This is a very low-key park - honestly, just the type of park I'm most drawn to. There are petroglyphs _everywhere_ - they recommended not going to two of the three areas due to rain that morning, but even just a short walk along the trail at the third site lead to dozens of petroglyphs, of all sorts. If you're in Albuquerque, there's really no reason not to stop by.
Visited: Wednesday, July 19, 2023
Visited: Tuesday, July 18, 2023
I fear after Kenai Fjords, I am becoming a little inured to wildlife - and very inured to glaciers. This is a beautiful park, and we got to see orcas two more times and humpbacks and sea lions. But the two highlights for me were the film which we only got to watch part of in the visitor center, which focuses on the underwater wildlife and was really spectacular, and our second encounter with orcas, when I was as close to them as I have ever been. Including at Sea World of Ohio, growing up. I do wish we had taken a plane or seaplane, rathe4 than a boat from Juneau - it was a long day.
Visited: Saturday, July 15, 2023 - Sunday, July 16, 2023
Visited: Wednesday, July 12, 2023 - Friday, July 14, 2023
The real visit of the park was on Thursday; on Wednesday, we saw the visitor center, and we'll go again very briefly tomorrow. But today we took an eight-and-a-half hour boat ride, getting in to the Northwestern Glacier (named after the school, which mildly surprised me), which was spectacular. And - not the highlight of the trip. We saw puffins and sea otters and harbor seals and Stellar Sea Lions and cormorants. Probably thousands of puffins. And that still wasn't the highlight. We saw _three_ pods of orcas - two resident, one transient - all right up close. And that _still_ wasn't the highlight, at least for me. We saw a pod of ~10 humpback whales, hunting by bubble net. Which was simply amazing to see - among other things, it's _not_ often seen in Alaska. (From Wikipedia: "Bubble net feeding does not occur everywhere. Alaska's cold waters and the high amounts of sun exposure in the summer time produce food for humpbacks.") But we saw it - and it was awesome. The whole day was fantastic. In spite of the fact that I'm not fond of long boat rides, this might have ben my favorite of the parks in Alaska.
Visited: Sunday, July 9, 2023 - Monday, July 10, 2023
Apparently, the first trick of seeing Denali is - seeing Denali. Only 30% of those who visit the park actually see the mountain. But we saw it - not the whole thing at once, but the bottom, and then the peaks - and it was impressive. Our luck with wildlife wasn't so good - we did see Dall Sheep and Caribou and Arctic Ground Squirrels. But - the most notable part of the park for me was the extent to which it _is_ preserved. There is a road in - only NPS buses use it, and only during the summer - but things have been disturbed as little as possible, which makes for a unique experience. Very pretty - though busy to an extent we haven't seen in Alaska. Not Yellowstone busy or anything - just not so sparse.
Visited: Saturday, July 8, 2023
Today - did not go as planned. We were supposed to visit Anaktuvuk visitor center, and then go on to Barrow (which, I have learned, it the name everyone here still seems to use for the city), but the weather did not cooperate. Our tour was able to visit the closed (and to be decommissioned) visitor center at Bettles, along with the Bettles Lodge, but - that, unfortunately, was it. Not a bad trip - but not what we were hoping for.
Oh, and during this trip we discovered why the "& Preserve" is there. Hunting is allowed on Preserves; it is not allowed in National Parks. So the areas where hunting happened were included as preserves, to get locals to buy in to the designation of the national park.
Visited: Tuesday, July 4, 2023
Katmai is known for it's bears, and it did not disappoint - we saw nine bears, including five cubs. But the most spectacular sight might have been a bald eagle, swooping past an animal which had been killed by seagulls, sitting at the top of a tree ignoring the seagull attacks, and then swooping back to capture the animal and fly away from the rather upset seagulls. Unfortunately, we were too early for salmon - only one couple in our group saw any - but it was still a very enjoyable trip.
Visited: Monday, July 3, 2023
Our main tour of the Alaska parks has now started, and we kicked it off with the beautiful Lake Clark. Recommendation: If you have the choice of taking the Beaver Pond trail or the main trail to get to the waterfall, take the main trail, _particularly_ if it's wet out (whether actively raining or not). The Beaver Pond (which now, in my mind, is Bunny Hop) trail is, as advertised less steep. But it's much longer, much narrower, much more covered in roots that will do their best to trip you, and if it's wet - it will drench you. The waterfall is well worth visiting - it's the highlight of the park - but the sharp climb at the start of the main trail levels off, and it's a fine hike after that. The flight into the park was rather good, passing close by multiple glaciers, some rather spectacular.
Update: I realized, after, that many of the National Parks in Alaska count as two units (officially one for the park, one for the preserve), even though there's only one place to visit. Numbers being updated to match...
