You might be experiencing another beautiful Fall where you live; complete with many-hued trees of orange, rust, pale green and down right red over shadowing your old fashioned cobblestone and brick streets, like we have here in my south of Chicago town in northern Illinois, but in the upper Blue Ridge range, and many other places around our nation, Winter has already begun to drop her white signature on peaks and even some upper plateaus.
A tree in our front yard taken 11/16/07
Since the bears in Shenandoah and The Great Smokies are seeking their hibernation lair for the long sleep, I guess it’s time for us to kick back by the warm fire and only dream of our national parks, while sipping hot chai lattes and nibbling on popcorn. Ah yes, hand me the remote so I can mute the commercials in between segments of “It’s a Wonderful Life”, and “White Christmas.”
(If this were a TV commercial, here I would insert the needle-dragged-across-the-record sound effect.) Wooooe, baby. Not!
For the staff at Adventure-Crew, and potentially for you also, winter just brings along different opportunities; both indoor and outdoor. As for us, we are doing some in-house shoots to enhance some web videos for you to watch, and also setting up some outdoor gear shoots for some of our clients. We are also looking at some fall and winter national parks to enjoy.
Many national parks have some high alpine areas that have to close due to excessive snow fall. Great Smoky Mountains National Park closes the major thoroughfare between Tennessee and North Carolina, New Found Gap Road only when excessive snowfall and ice takes too long to remove or make safe. Today when I called the park, they reported that the road is currently open even though there is enough snow to close Clingman’s Dome road. But there are several other road closures, some for the season. So our advice is to call each park before visiting. Conditions change rapidly.
This will be true for many parks like Grand Tetons, Yellowstone, North Cascades, Glacier, Mount Rainier which has a serious landslide issue right now that has closed a major road, Mt. St. Helens, Olympic, Crater Lake, Kings Canyon and Sequoia and all parks that include high alpine terrain.
For high plateau parks like Canyon Lands, and Arches, road closures only occur as weather necessitates. Grand Canyon however, seasonally closes some roads and visitor areas. At this posting, Tanner Trail was closed due to a major rock slide till further notice, North Rim Visitor Center closed for the season, hwy 67 stays open till the first major snowfall, and the North Rim camp ground stays open year around. Many drinking water lines have been shutoff for the winter.
As you can see, even though there are a few road closures, The National Park Service does what they can to reasonably maintain many roads into the park.
Yellowstone National Park however, is a special case. All roads except the two major east and west entrances are already closed for the winter. Yellowstone is one of the premier snowfall parks in the country. If you wish to take your snowmobiles up to Yellowstone, do it now because there is the possibility that Yellowstone park officials will start severely limiting private snowmobile use this winter even though the connecting three state legislators are doing what they can to reverse this momentum of changing Yellowstone into a look-but-don’t-touch type of park.
So, don’t think that you’re doomed to reruns and popcorn by the TV for the fall and winter leading to cabin fever. Our national parks have plenty to do, from snow sports and cold weather hiking, to fantastic new indoor displays, like the video rivers at Grand Teton National Park. There really is nothing like it anywhere else on the planet.
Don’t put away the walking sticks, just add the heavier parkas, and some more layers and head on out.
For a list of the top 100 parks featured on Adventure-Crew’s site, click here. Each park page will supply you with local area information about each park, as well as current contact info. To help you make plans.