"Gatlinburg is a bizarre theme park of a town..", he does have a point about Gatlinburg, it's a strange place. Imagine a touristy beach town, like Daytona Beach FL in the 80s before they kicked out the spring breakers, but small yet not charming-small like a Colorado ski town just.. small. The smokey mountains in general is similarly off, lots of Native American owned tourist stores but filled with confederate flags for some reason. It's still a beautiful drive though.
I went to America's worst national parks so you don't have to
121–130 of 198 posts
Re: I went to America's worst national parks so you don't have to
#122> Every day hike in Zion Canyon is kind of like waiting in line at Disney World. You’re waiting in line in a magical place, but you’re still waiting in line. You ask a dead-eyed park ranger to recommend you a less popular hike, and he spits in your face. There is no such thing as a less-popular hike in Zion Canyon. You will wait in line on the trail and you will be grateful you piece of shit. Yeah, you can safely dis…
With most parks the crowds quickly disappear once you are 2 miles in. That's the case pretty much all over the world. I remember in Iceland there were these huge crowds at a water fall close to the bus stop. I hiked 3 miles in to another similar waterfall. There we had less than 10 people.
Power law:
The number of people decrease as a power of the distance you travel away from popular spots
Re: I went to America's worst national parks so you don't have to
#123Gateway arch national park is by far the worst in the nation and it's not even close!
You're unironically very likely to get robbed on your way there, back, and even within the park itself.
St Louis is one of the saddest, most run down, ghetto cities in the USA and it's not even close. I'm pretty sure Detriot and possibly even Baltimore mog it.
Re: I went to America's worst national parks so you don't have to
#124Earlier quoted context omitted.
With most parks the crowds quickly disappear once you are 2 miles in. That's the case pretty much all over the world. I remember in Iceland there were these huge crowds at a water fall close to the bus stop. I hiked 3 miles in to another similar waterfall. There we had less than 10 people.
Power law: The number of people decrease as a power of the distance you travel away from popular spots
The NPS has an even more specific version of this: the overwhelming majority of Americans visiting a park will not walk more than 1/4 mile from their vehicle. So everything is designed to reinforce this behavior as much as possible, which (a) means that the majority of people get a richer, more dramatic and/or more informative/eye-opening visit (b) the backcountry is left alone, both for the other animals that live there and for the rare humans who will head out there.
Re: I went to America's worst national parks so you don't have to
#125> Can you hike in the Grand Canyon? Yes, technically. You can walk along the rim, but the view won’t change; same damn canyon on one side, same damn parking lot on the other. There are trails that go down into the canyon, but they’re a trap. They are featureless steep inclines formed into endless switchbacks, and when they finally end, there’s nothing to do except go back up, which will be just as boring but three ti…
* zero documentation
* dev team is a ghost town
* literal tons of boilerplate just to bootstrap single, empty container
* hasn't had a proper release[1] in ages.
Unless I'm completely misinterpreting you, I'd say this isn't a good look for the "largest repository by volume"
1: of water
Re: I went to America's worst national parks so you don't have to
#126> Every day hike in Zion Canyon is kind of like waiting in line at Disney World. You’re waiting in line in a magical place, but you’re still waiting in line. You ask a dead-eyed park ranger to recommend you a less popular hike, and he spits in your face. There is no such thing as a less-popular hike in Zion Canyon. You will wait in line on the trail and you will be grateful you piece of shit. Yeah, you can safely dis…
Yeah, this was an off article that half I completely disagreed with, a quarter is probably accurate, and the other quarter I don’t know anything about. Zion is amazing. One of my favorites. We found a great dry riverbed trail and saw no one for nearly two hours. My kids loved Arches. Had we known? We would have planned longer. Bryce we thought was meh, unpopular opinion, I’m sure. Canyonlands I can’t even remember. S…
> The Grand Canyon review is spot on though.
It may be factually accurate, but nevertheless, hiking down to the river and back up again was one of the most amazing hiking experiences of my life, and there have been quite a few of those.
Re: I went to America's worst national parks so you don't have to
#127State parks are where it's at. But love the Gatlinburg aside. It's like Myrtle Beach, but worse. The Blue Ridge mountains have amazing natural beauty for miles in every direction. So many great towns too - Blowing Rock, Boone, Asheville, Maggie Valley, (hopefully Chimney Rock will be back on that list someday). Why anyone would pick Gatlinburg to visit is beyond me.
> But love the Gatlinburg aside. It's like Myrtle Beach, but worse.
Yeah Gatlinburg is a strange place, that one stuck out to me too. I described it in my comment as like a touristy beach town but small and not in a charming way. That main strip with all the t-shirt and other tourist shops haha, it reminds me so much of Daytona Beach when I lived there as a child.
Re: I went to America's worst national parks so you don't have to
#128I'm from the West Coast. My national park experience includes Yosemite, Volcanoes, Arches, Zion, Bryce, Redwood, Crater Lake, and Lassen. (I've technically also been to the Grand Canyon, but it was so foggy, it was more like going to the Sears Portrait Studio - you couldn't even see the canyon.) I used to say "I've never been to a national park and wondered why it's a national park - they all have an obvious and imme…
> Even my Mainer friends say "we don't know why Acadia is a park - there are so many other places in Maine that are at least as pretty."
I believe that private ownership of land is the biggest answer.
Re: I went to America's worst national parks so you don't have to
#129Capitol Reef is ridiculous. There's no fish.
Re: I went to America's worst national parks so you don't have to
#130> Can you hike in the Grand Canyon? Yes, technically. You can walk along the rim, but the view won’t change; same damn canyon on one side, same damn parking lot on the other. There are trails that go down into the canyon, but they’re a trap. They are featureless steep inclines formed into endless switchbacks, and when they finally end, there’s nothing to do except go back up, which will be just as boring but three ti…
Agreed. I've been to many canyons, and the Grand Canyon is truly a marvel - it's stunning, it took my breath away and still does. Just go and look at it for 15 minutes? That's all you can muster? "Featureless" steep inclines? No mention of the biodiversity? What?! The Grand Canyon is in the rare club of places I've been that surpassed my high expectations.
I say to anyone who asks me about the GC "it will completely surpass any expectations you have of it, even if you take this into account". Nothing can prepare you for the scale of it, even if you've been there before and/or been in the Utah canyon parks. No photo, no video can capture the experience of being on the edge of it nor being down in it.