Planning the Great West Coast trip
We are in the planning stage of our west coast. We want to visit the following: Great Basin NP, Kings/Sequoia NP, Yosemite NP, Lassen Volcanic NP, Redwood NP, Crater NP, Olympic NP, Mt. Ranier NP, Cas...
Forum Discussion
"are we going to get tired of all the Redwood/Sequoia trees, are these NP's going to start to look alike after awhile?"
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Nope, you'll see Redwoods in Redwoods NP and Sequoias in Yosemite (in a few places) and Sequoia/King's Canyon. None of the others have any that I know of. And no those parks won't start looking alike. The only parks that fall into that category for use are the Indian Ruins parks which start with Gila Cliffs and finish at Mesa Verde. The cliff dwellings start to blur together. But you aren't going to any of those.
As for Parks to skip, unless you are using US 50, Great Basin is far away from anything else. It does have the caves that are worth seeing and some nice hiking trails. Hwy 50 is a good drive tho but not close to the west coast.
We have not been to Cascades, the only one on your list that we still have to visit. But I don't recall very many posts about it here, meaning that it isn't that popular. But that may not be a bad thing. We weren't all that impressed with Theodore Roosevelt but that probably was our fault as we just did a drive thru.
As for time, I cannot think of a park that we left feeling that we spent too much time there. This is especially true if you get out of your car and go hiking. I'd say 2 or 3 days at each park minimum, with the option to extend a stay if you want to do so. I'm not sure why you are taking I-76 unless you want to go to Denver. If you stay on I-80 you will pass within 30-45 minutes of Devil's Tower which is worth a hike around the base of the tower. Probably 3 hours total to and from I-80. interesting than I expected. Maybe 90 minutes total to see it.
I'm not sure how you plan to get to North Dakota on that route tho.
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Nope, you'll see Redwoods in Redwoods NP and Sequoias in Yosemite (in a few places) and Sequoia/King's Canyon. None of the others have any that I know of. And no those parks won't start looking alike. The only parks that fall into that category for use are the Indian Ruins parks which start with Gila Cliffs and finish at Mesa Verde. The cliff dwellings start to blur together. But you aren't going to any of those.
As for Parks to skip, unless you are using US 50, Great Basin is far away from anything else. It does have the caves that are worth seeing and some nice hiking trails. Hwy 50 is a good drive tho but not close to the west coast.
We have not been to Cascades, the only one on your list that we still have to visit. But I don't recall very many posts about it here, meaning that it isn't that popular. But that may not be a bad thing. We weren't all that impressed with Theodore Roosevelt but that probably was our fault as we just did a drive thru.
As for time, I cannot think of a park that we left feeling that we spent too much time there. This is especially true if you get out of your car and go hiking. I'd say 2 or 3 days at each park minimum, with the option to extend a stay if you want to do so. I'm not sure why you are taking I-76 unless you want to go to Denver. If you stay on I-80 you will pass within 30-45 minutes of Devil's Tower which is worth a hike around the base of the tower. Probably 3 hours total to and from I-80. interesting than I expected. Maybe 90 minutes total to see it.
I'm not sure how you plan to get to North Dakota on that route tho.
