National Parks

How many days will you have to spend at a park?

 

And what kind of car?

 

Yellowstone is awesome

 

Crater Lake, Oregon.

 

Agree on the Yellowstone assessment, and you'll be coming from the South which means you can also see the Grand Tetons. Might need 2 or 3 days in Yellowstone to see the whole park because it is pretty diverse. Highly recommend that you go all the way to Gardiner, MT, which is the Northern entrance to the park.

Edit - Also go to West Yellowstone. It has the Grizzly and Wolf Discovery Center, which was pretty cool.

 

Yellowstone is cool but it's going to be a shit show in late July.

Go to Utah. Arches, Canyonlands, Capitol Reef (my favorite), Bryce Canyon and Zion. Even Goblin Valley State Park is cool.

P.S. Are you going by yourself? If so, don't hike.

 

Can your mom hike that far?

BOOM

 

you definitely need to bone in the woods then.

 

I'd do Utah like fattus said and you could also make it to the smaller Colorado parks - Black Canyon of the Gunnison and Great Sand Dunes as well.

 

If you've got your heart set on Yellowstone, do a backcountry trip. It's amazing how far away you can seem from the masses just half a mile off the beaten path.

 

Second Zion in Utah. It's amazing.

 

Rocky Mountain National Park is ~80 miles from denver and beautiful. Depends on whether you want to camp, or have a road trip type trip I guess. Book your campsite when you figure out what you want to do. They fill pretty quick

RMNP has a few loops that you could do over a few days. Just have to coordinate the back-country campsites via a map and how much you think you'd want to hike per day. Or the option of parking in the thick with a bunch of car campers is there if having a bathroom is your thing. You can do day hikes that way while only carrying your water and a little food instead of a big pack

Hard to give recommendations based on what you've told us

 

If you're going to camp in RMNP you better make a reservation yesterday.

 

Also within driving distance:
Carlsbad Caverns & White Sands NM. You can camp at White Sands, but neither is worth much more than a day trip. Also keep going south and you can hit Big Bend, TX.
But, out of all of them mentioned ITT, I'd still go Yellowstone/Tetons. If you haven't seen the geological features you need to before you die.

edit - One more that hasn't been mentioned, and I googled the distance for you at 14 hours: Glacier NP in Montana.
My favorite NP in the US and probably the best one ITT for the time of year you're going (as long as it isn't on fire).

 

Anybody been to Denali? Could use some pointers for a trip in August.

 

I have not been to Glacier. It is next up for me, but not until next year as I have no time this year.

 

Yellowstone is pretty fucking far from Denver. The Wind River Range is a good bit closer and badass. The Great Sand Dunes in southern Colorado are also really cool.

 

This. It's a huge waste of prime backcountry time to be driving from Denver to Yellowstone. Drop into Utah and do some combo of the big five.

 

This if you would want to hit up more unique land features along the way and overall a better view (central Wyoming can be pretty bland), otherwise the distance is about the same to both.

 

there is no way canyonlands is the same distance from denver as yellowstone

arches 350 miles
canyonlands 362 miles
cap reef 428
bryce 556
zion 605

yellowstone 534

so you could conveniently get to 3 of the big 5 with comparable mileage as hitting yellowstone

 

And there are no interstates remotely close to Yellowstone coming from the south

 

I was talking about Zion and Bryce. The others obviously not. But it really depends on what you are trying to see, Tetons are arguably the most gorgeous mountains in the country and Yellowstone is so unique thanks to its volcanic properties. While Bryce, Zion and the others are completely different and also gorgeous in a different way.

Different strokes for different folks.

 

Zion is my favorite NP, hike the narrow canyons. It's amazing and one of those stand out from the crowd memories from childhood.

I'll be going to Tetons again this summer as my Mom is a seasonal NPS worker and that's where she'll be.

 

I did arches, canyonlands, cap reef and goblin valley SP in 3 days, 2 nights.

Day 1: Drive from Denver and set up camp on BLM land near Goblin Valley, cathedral loop in cap reef, back to camp and sleep
Day 2: Break camp, GV, canyonlands, set up camp on BLM land between CL and arches, hike a bit until sleep time
Day 3: Break camp, arches, drive back to Denver

 

Leadville, CO would be a great place to go poke around

 

Big Bend is so underrated.

 

If you're leaving from Denver just do RMNP IMO IYAM. Spend your time hiking instead of driving. Unless you want to drive Trail Ridge Road which is great fun.

 

You could make a 7 day trip out of it - hit Carlsbad Caverns/Guadalupe Mountain on your way down to Big Bend, stay a day or two, hit White Sands/Santa Fe on your way back up.

Maybe stop in Juarez and get murdered as well. Somewhere down there is a village of pueblo/mud huts too - I can't remember where, though.

 

Tetons is my favorite NP, just saying that I think in his circumstance he's better served heading to Utah or staying in CO than heading up the boondocks of Wyo.

Zion is truly elite. I was there in October and fiddling around in the Narrows when a storm came. Managed to get out just as hail hit. The trams froze, everything flooded, it was intense. I have some good pictures of water pouring down out of holes in the canyon walls in torrential spouts.

Always amazes me how few people you see in the Chisos.

 

I would say you can do more driving through Colorado and then seeing the parks in Utah with the amount of time you have. I'm hoping to get out to a few of the parks in Utah this summer.

 

Cap Reef was way underrated, IMO. I did several good hikes without seeing much of anyone. I thought Arches was a little bit of a letdown, but of course it's still badass. Thanks, socialism. Thanks, not-myopic, actual conservatives who like to conserve things.

 

Cap Reef isn't as accessible as the others. Hell, there wasn't even a paved road to it until the 60s. You don't run into many folks off the highway.

Arches is very cool but also crowded as fuck.

P.S. Don't try to get a flat repair in Moab on a Sunday.

 

Definetly a day's drive from Yellowstone but Glacier is by far and away my favorite park. The most visually stunning place I've ever been in the US...

 

Been. What do you want to know?

I'd plan on several days in the area to do it right. And definitely take one of the bus rides. It may sound boring, but it's really really good. Take one of the earliest ones too, that way you can get off on stops and explore some and not have to get right back on, but can wait on subsequent ones.

 

Glacier is the GOAT National Park.

 

Shenandoah

 

Bike or car flat?

 

Reading this thread has me so excited for summer

 

Not a national park but one of the coolest, if not the coolest, places I've seen is St. Helens National Monument.

Space obviously does this on a larger scale, but nothing hits you so directly than staring at a mountain 17 miles away and seeing 150 foot trees snapped like toothpicks. Most powerless I've ever felt and most awe-inspired by nature.

 

Rocky mountain national park
Great Sand Dunes National Park.
Or head west into Utah.
Royal Gorge

Plenty to do, enjoy

 

One of my goals this summer is to learn the backcountry of GSM and find where all those wild brookies are hanging out.

 

If you're not camping in Yellowstone then you'll be in a lot of traffic and among mongol hordes. It's really awesome, but that's two long days of driving for one day in the park.

 

This is right near the top of my travel plans list

Will be driving through CO and NM to get there so will be able to stop in tons of awesome places along the way

We've got a Bammer in Taos too MB123

 

A lot of elk, deer, and bison...probably have a better shot at seeing a griz in the Winds