We made another trip out to Big Bend last weekend - just my son, my father, and myself. I think Chisos Basin has moved into my top 3 favorite campgrounds.



We hiked Santa Elena Canyon, which was pretty short but really beautiful




We watched the sunset through The Window



We hiked the Lost Mine Trail





The next adventure is our Utah trip in May

A quick trip to Everglades yesterday:






And Biscayne today:

We did our Utah trip last week and had a great time.

We used Bryce as a home base for the first half of the trip and day tripped to Great Basin NP and Zion NP (a return trip).

We saw the hoodoos in Bryce and hiked down Queens Garden into the canyon (Navajo Loop was still closed due to snow).




Great Basin was cool - I was REALLY looking forward to the Bristlecone Pine Trail but when we got there we found out that the road up to it was still snowed in. That was kind of a bummer. We did a cave tour down in Lehman Cave which my 7 y.o. daughter actually really liked (we've done a number of other caves but for some reason this one captured her attention).

My son and I got up super early and drove over to Zion and hiked Angel's Landing - that was a bucket list hike for me and it was pretty spectacular. It was a non-holiday weekday but the Visitor Center parking lot was 2/3 full by 7:15am.

We had been to Zion a few years ago, but I forgot how stunning it is. We came in the east entrance and the drive between the entrance station and the tunnel is amazing.

It took us 2 hours from the trail head to the summit - if we had been any later that time would have been significantly longer because we were able to beat the crowd. The switchbacks on the way up are the hardest part of the hike physically - once you get to the chains it's a little more mental (noticeably more on the way down when you're looking down at your footing). Afterwards we soaked our feet in the Virgin River, which was pretty dogon cold.







Initially, we were going to day trip to Capitol Reef NP from Bryce but we called an audible when we landed a campsite at Fruita Campground inside the park so we left Bryce and stayed at CRNP. VERY glad we did - Fruita was a gorgeous campground and I'm glad we had a little more time in Captiol Reef - it was probably my favorite of the Mighty Five, and probably fits the initial question from the OP when this thread was started.



I hiked Cohab Canyon just before sundown.








The whole family hiked Grand Wash....it was 4.4 miles, the furthest my daughter has hiked, but it was completely flat....and really cool.




Then we headed to Moab, which was also not part of our original plan. We didn't go into Arches or Canyonlands (did those on our previous trip) but we used our couple days there to just chill. If we had planned the stop, I would have tried to pull a permit for Fiery Furnace but on such short notice there weren't any slot available.

My son and I did a Jeep tour through Hell's Revenge, which was pretty awesome.





We ate at The Spoke - it is brand new and was a little bit discombobulated in terms of seating/wait times but the food was great and it was a pretty cool building/atmosphere.

We also ate at The Brewery and my son and I had the best burger ever - Tri-Tip Bacon Cheeseburger with Jack Daniels BBQ sauce and two onion rings.

On the way home, we found out that Moab is basically the same drive distance home as Estes Park is, which kinda surprised me.

Next trip will be mid-June out to Louisville where we'll do some non-park stuff and then hit Mammoth Cave NP.

Was back at the Great Smoky Mountains yesterday. Didn't take a lot of pics, but this was the top of Mt Le Conte. One of the best hikes we've done.

Haleakala summit area this morning:

Since you mentioned it, we just completed that circle today. We stayed in Hana the last two nights so had 3 full days on the Hana Highway and associated sights. That's really the way to do it. I've done the Hana circle in a day...it's too rushed. I was able to relax this time: hit a few different beaches and had them all to myself, went horseback riding, and wasn't rushed at all.

This was actually our second visit to Haleakala. In fact, this was the first National Park that my son and I visited together about 6 years ago. We did the pools and the Pipiwai trail this morning. They don't allow access into the pools anymore so that kind of sucks. But here are some pics:






And the payoff view!

As requested, here's a write-up of our trip. We ended up driving 4400 miles over 19 days visiting 11 National Parks + Mount Rushmore. I worked up a rough estimate of cost and excluding souvenirs, I think we spent about $5K on Hotels, Food and Gas. I worked our itinerary to where we never had a drive longer than 8 hours and all of the hikes were appropriate for my 3 and 6 year old children who came with me and my wife.

We started out driving from Monterey, CA to Yosemite and spent two full days in the Park. We started in the South seeing the Mariposa Grove of Sequoias before heading to Glacier Point and hiking up to the top of Sentinel Dome and finishing out the day seeing tunnel view before heading to our hotel for the night. The next day we hiked the Yosemite Falls trial and Mist Trail as well as heading over to Bridalveil Falls and El Capitan to walk around and admire the park. This was my second time going to Yosemite and it just blows every other park out of the water in my opinion in terms of beauty and wonder.

Here's a picture from near Glacier Point.







I wanted to drive the Tioga Pass as we left the park and visit Death Valley on the way to Las Vegas, but unfortunately the pass was still closed due to heavy snowfall so we just went the boring way and drove to Las Vegas for a one night pit stop on the way to Zion for two nights.

Zion was totally different then Yosemite, mostly because of how hot it was. Temperatures were in the mid 90's and luckily our first couple of hikes were partially shaded because my non-Texan children were melting. The second day we did an exposed hike up the Watchman trail and were greeted by an epic view at the top.









After Zion, we drove scenic route 12 and 24 seeing Bryce Canyon and Capitol Reef on our way to Moab. We spent about 3 hours in Bryce, and I think that was enough for me. The amphitheater full of hoodoos was pretty cool but the park didn't grab my imagination like Yosemite and Zion had.



Capitol Reef on the other hand, I made a big mistake by not allocating more time to. It was gorgeous even as the weather turned on us a bit and a thunderstorm moved in. We only spent 2 hours in the park but I want to find a way to go back and spend a couple days hiking and exploring.





We got to Moab late at night and then headed to Canyonlands and Dead Horse State Park the next day. Again the weather was hot which slowed my kids down so we only hiked the Grand View trail and the Mesa Arch before going to Dead Horse.





The next day we hiked through Arches seeing the double arch and windows formations and went off roading a bit through the park to get away from the crowds.



Overall after finishing the Utah 5, Zion was my favorite followed by Capitol Reef, Canyonlands, Arches and then Bryce.

Next we had a along drive up to Jackson, Wy and our three days in the Grand Tetons. My wife and I ended up really liking this park because of the weather, smaller crowds and great hikes. We spent the first day at Jenny Lake hiking up to Hidden Falls and Inspiration point and then just strolling around the lake.





Next we drove up to Yellowstone and had an interesting adventure for two days. The weather turned crazy and it starting snowing on us with temperatures dipping down into the 20's. I still enjoyed seeing the Yellowstone Falls and Grand Canyon of Yellowstone.


We really didn't get out and hike much because we didn't have the right clothes and so we mostly just engaged in drive by tourism. Of course, that included getting stuck in traffic for 2 hours behind a herd of Buffalo before we finally just decided to leave the park and head on to Cody, WY for a night before driving to Keystone, SD to see Mt. Rushmore, Wind Cave and the Badlands.

Rushmore was cool, especially for me as a history major, but as some on here had mentioned, there isn't much to do, so the 4 hours we spent was enough. Wind Cave was a cool little park, and we did a ranger led hike (mandatory) through the cave which was well put together and informative. Then we drove through the park (it's small) seeing plenty of Buffalo and prairie dogs. (I couldn't get any good pictures inside the cave)

The next day we went to the Badlands, and I loved it! I should have budgeted more time to hike around as we only spent about 5 hours there. The colors were just so vibrant between the banded canyons and the yellow wildflowers.





Finally, we headed to Rocky Mountain NP for the last stop on this trip before heading to Amarillo and then Dallas. And we really enjoyed the park, the wildlife viewing was unbelievable with huge herds of Elk roaming the park. We ended up doing an unbelievable hike from Bear Lake up to Emerald lake that included trekking through the snow up to the still partially frozen lake.





My final ranking of the parks is:

• Yosemite
• Grand Teton
• Rocky Mountain
• Zion
• Badlands
• Capitol Reef
• Canyonlands
• Yellowstone
• Arches
• Bryce
• Wind Cave

Hopefully y'all enjoy the pictures and if you have any questions about anything else we did I'd be glad to share.