Unknown National Parks

June 28, 2004 -- The last time I visited Glacier National Park the hiking trails were so worn nothing grew on them. On the last trip to Yellowstone, fellow campers trying to photograph a feeding bull elk near the highway created a traffic jam.

No wonder people problems exist: In 2003 some 1.9 million people went through Glacier and 2.9 million visited Yellowstone.

Many of our 50-some national parks are overrun by the nearly 70 million people who come every year to camp, fish, hike and photograph wildlife. Along with Glacier and Yellowstone, Rocky Mountain (2.9 million), Yosemite (3.3 million), and Grand Canyon (4.1 million) are especially hard hit.

The good news is that other parks are relatively free of crowds, and full of relatively solitary adventure, as well as wildlife. Here are five good ones to consider — along with contact information — for your next vacation.

Nez Perce National Historical Park

Many national parks commemorate not only American history, including battlefields and monuments, but the history of earlier people as well. The 38 sites of the Nez Perce National Historical Park, which are located in Idaho, Oregon, Washington and Montana, pay tribute to the legends and history of the Nez Perce people, first met by explorers Lewis and Clark.

The park sites are mostly small pockets of land surrounded by a patchwork of private, local, state, tribal, and other federal ownership. They also display the diversity of their tribal lands ranging from the sweeping prairies in Montana to the high-country cirques of Idaho and Oregon, to the desert-like regions in Washington. Touring many of the sites is the best way to take in how land contributed to the cultural heritage of native people.

Surprisingly, only 204,000 people used the park's sites in 2003. The lack of campgrounds is likely a key reason; however, tourist accommodations are available throughout the region. Also, campsites abound in Montana's nearby Beaverhead and Bitterroot national forests, in Oregon's Wallowa-Whitman National Forest, and in Idaho's Clearwater and Nez Perce national forests.Big Hole National Battlefield, 10 miles west of Wisdom, Mont., has a staffed visitor center to answer questions and explain the War of 1877. Another staffed visitor center is located at park headquarters in Spalding, Idaho, 11 miles east of Lewiston.

Several sites feature short interpretive trails, and visitors will often see wildlife native to the American West. Examples include golden eagles, marmots, black bears and mule deer. Hiking, backpacking, bird watching and canoeing are popular activities. Trails at Canoe Camp outside of Orofino and the Heart of Monster in Kamiah have accessible trails.

For more information go to www.nps.gov/nepe or call (208) 843-2261 or write to Nez Perce National Historical Park, Rte. 1, Box 100, Spalding ID 83540-9715.

Isle Royale

For every overcrowded national park there's one that's relatively underused. For experienced backpackers, a favorite is roadless Isle Royale, a wilderness archipelago 45 miles long plunked down like an emerald in the heart of sapphire-blue Lake Superior.

The 850-square-mile park is home to wolves, moose, otter, beaver and loons. About 165 miles of scenic hiking trails follow ridges formed by long-ago lava flows, which were later shaped by uplift and glaciation and which are now forested.

Most of the island's 20,000 annual visitors come by ferry from Houghton or Copper Harbor, Mich., or Grand Portage, Minn. The rugged, yet fragile island is also accessible by floatplane and recreational boat.

Some of its 36 designated campgrounds are accessible only by canoe or kayak, which can be rented or brought over on the ferry. Campers can also choose from tent sites (maximum six people) and group sites (seven to 10 people), or one of the 88 three-sided shelters strategically located along hiking trails and available on a first-come basis.Park managers don't permit long-term camping at any site in order to spread out pressure on the environment and ease overcrowding.

Fishing for lake trout in pristine waters among the island's many bays and coves is excellent, and several inland lakes offer pike and panfish. Most visitors report seeing one or more of Isle Royale's 900 moose. Other activities are rock hounding and identifying songbirds and wildflowers. Adventure activities include scuba diving, kayaking and exploring the island's secrets such as its abandoned copper mines. Children can participate in a one- to two-day Junior Ranger program to solve riddles of life on Isle Royale.

Full-service facilities, including a lodge for non-campers, are open from mid-June to Labor Day. For more information, go to www.nps.gov/isro, call (906) 482-0984, or write to Isle Royal National Park, 87 N. Ripley St., Houghton MI 49931.

Great Basin National Park

No, it's not the same as nearby Bryce Canyon or Death Valley national parks, but neither is Great Basin National Park in Baker, Nev., as busy. Only 85,000 visitors came in 2003. At 77,000 acres, Great Basin offers spectacular scenery ranging from limestone caverns — including beautiful Lehman Caves — to 13,063-foot-high Wheeler Peak and the only glacier in the Great Basin Desert.

See Lexington Arch, rushing streams, jewel-like lakes and an abundance of wildlife that live in high desert, forest and alpine habitats.

Activities include fishing, camping, hiking, backpacking and climbing. Be sure to catch the guided natural history tours of Lehman Caves and the ancient bristlecone grove in the Wheeler Peak cirque.

Wildlife species include mountain lions, sheep and antelope along with 238 kinds of birds such as western tanagers, black-headed grosbeaks and several hummingbirds.On Friday and Saturday afternoons during the summer, a ranger leads educational programs for kids at Upper Lehman Creek Campground.

A 2 ½-mile-long young hiker's trail leads from Summit Trailhead to pretty Stella Lake with only a slight gain in elevation en route. Another fun activity is gathering tasty pinyon pine nuts in fall when the kids compete with Clark's nutcrackers, pinyon jays and ground squirrels.

For more information go to www.nps.gov/grba or call (775) 234-7331 or write to Great Basin National Park, Hwy. 488, Baker NV 89311.

Catoctin Mountain Park

Most national parks in the eastern U.S. receive an inordinate amount of people pressure. Catoctin Mountain Park in Maryland handles upwards of 500,000 visitors each year and yet has been able to maintain solitude and beauty among the rolling eastern hardwood forest.

The 5,809-acre park was developed as a recreational camp for federal employees working in the Works Project Administration and Civilian Conservation Corps programs during the Great Depression. President Roosevelt, who suffered from sinus problems, sought refuge in the park from the congestion of Washington, D.C. That portion of the park is the now well-known presidential retreat called Camp David and is not open to the public.

Visitors elsewhere may see white-tailed deer, wild turkeys and pileated woodpeckers along the 25 miles of hiking trails that range from easy to strenuous and that lead to panoramic mountain views. Camping, picnicking, orienteering, bird watching, rock climbing at Wolf Rock and flyfishing for brook, brown and rainbow trout in Big Hunting Creek are popular activities. The park has six miles of horse trails (but no commercial livery) that traverse creeks and rugged mountain terrain.Thirty-acre Camp Misty Mount offers rustic cabins for rental, and Owens Creek Campground has 51 wooded sites that can accept motorhomes and travel trailers to 22 feet long. Poplar Grove Youth Group Tent Camping Area is open to adult-supervised children under 18 years of age.

Summer and fall organized activities include blacksmith shop demonstrations, campfire programs, volunteer trail workdays and interpretations of the park's ecology. Examples of the latter include whitetail deer management and the impact from invasive plant species.

For more information go to www.nps.gov/cato or call (301) 663-9388 or write to Catoctin Mountain Park, 6602 Foxville Rd., Thurmont MD 21788-1598.

Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park

One of the country's newest national parks, Black Canyon of the Gunnison near Montrose, Colo., was designated in October 1999. Last year only 165,000 people came to visit. Not even the Grand Canyon combines such a narrow opening, steep walls and astonishing depth afforded by this unique American landscape.

For a thrilling scenic drive, take the East Portal Road tour with its hairpin curves and 15 percent grade. Equally stunning are the North Rim and South Rim drives; the latter features 10 overlooks reachable by short walking trails and a visitor center.

A must-do for families is the Morrow Point Boat Tour on the Gunnison River, 2,000 feet below the canyon surface. Interpreters explain natural and local history, including the building of a narrow gauge railway through what the editor of the Gunnison Review-Press in 1882 called "the largest and most rugged canyon in the world traversed by the iron horse."

For more than 2 million years, the Gunnison River, which offers excellent fishing for rainbow and brown trout, has sluiced through bedrock to create three life zones in the 27,700-acre park.These zones afford a cornucopia of habitat and wildlife: the pinyon juniper forest with mountain mahogany, coyotes, and mountain lions; the oak flats of the canyon rim with its many species of wildflowers along with mule deer and black bear; and the inner canyon with peregrine falcons and bighorn sheep.

The park offers in-depth personal service programs to more than 10,000 pre-school, K-12, college/university students, and lifelong learners in 11 communities, six school districts, colleges and universities across the nation. Undergraduate and graduate level courses are annually offered for teachers. In addition, ranger-led activities include guided walks, interpretive lunches and search-and-rescue equipment demonstrations.

For more information go to www.nps.gov/blca or call (970) 641-2337, ext. 205 or write to Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park, 102 Elk Creek, Gunnison CO 81230.

In all the National Park Service manages nearly 400 properties covering more than 83 million acres in every state except Delaware. Besides the lesser-known national parks are many other adventures for families to explore. So this summer, find your own "undiscovered" national park and get away from it all — including the crowds.

Tom Huggler is a fulltime freelance writer and the author of The Camper's and Backpacker's Bible. He lives in Sunfield, Mich., and can be reached at www.tomhuggler.com.