Travel: Road Trip. USA National Parks. Summer 2012

According to Wikipedia, the United States of America has 59 national parks. In June of 2012, we decided to drive to as many as we can out West starting from Colorado. After a few months of planning, we rented a car from Denver and completed a full loop back after a month on the road. These are the parks we stopped by:

1. Great Sand Dunes, Colorado
2. Mesa Verde, Colorado
3. Bryce Canyon, Utah
4. Canyonlands a.k.a. Needles, Utah
5. Arches, Utah
6. Zion, Utah
7. Grand Canyon, Arizona
8. Sequoia, California
9. Yosemite, California
10. Grand Teton, Wyoming
11. Yellowstone, Wyoming,Montana and Idaho

From all the above, I think Utah has the best national parks, from Zion to the Arches to the Needles at Canyonlands. They all had the best trails for hiking and beautiful nature that changed dramatically from park to park. Once there, we hiked between 4-8 hours a day depending on the trails. We got in some climbing in the Grand Tetons and did some longer repelling in the Canyonlands. Single track biking on limestone and we also went on a hot air balloon ride, which to my surprise, was anticlimactic but nevertheless worth trying, and luckily the views in Jackson were unparalleled. One particular hike worth mentioning was The Narrows in Zion, a river hike where at times we were up to our stomachs in water, altogether spending 10 mesmerizing hours in the canyon, I truly recommend it.  Some drives took 12 hours like the one from Yosemite to the Salt lakes in Utah, but having met so many people along the way, enjoyed good food and with the music on the road, this was an after thought. Each State has its uniqueness and geography, and I’m sure that in the fall or spring, these parks would be altogether different.  This is just an excuse to do it all again.  It was really difficult to select from almost 1000 pictures of 11 national parks and more than three weeks of being on the road to 44 photos, so enjoy!