Category Ranking
Best National Parks for Backpacking in Spring
Top parks for backpacking during spring, ranked by a composite of activity quality and seasonal conditions.
Updated
Canyonlands National Park
Four districts carved by the Colorado River: from Island in the Sky's overlooks to The Maze's backcountry spanning canyons larger than LA.
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Sequoia & Kings Canyon National Parks
The giant sequoias here include General Sherman, the largest tree on Earth by volume, anchoring a forest where trunks exceed 30 feet wide.
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Channel Islands National Park
California's Galápagos lies 12 miles offshore with 145 endemic species. Sea lions, island foxes, and rare seabirds inhabit five islands.
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Grand Canyon National Park
The Colorado River carved through two billion years of rock to create a chasm one mile deep and 277 miles long at the South Rim.
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Yosemite National Park
Granite cliffs rise 3,000 feet, seasonal waterfalls drop half a mile, and giant sequoias reach into the Sierra sky in this iconic valley.
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Hawaiʻi Volcanoes National Park
Two active volcanoes shape terrain from tide pools to alpine desert. Walk across recent lava flows and through rainforests on ancient rock.
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Guadalupe Mountains National Park
Texas's highest peaks rise from a 265-million-year-old fossil reef in the Chihuahuan Desert, holding more species than any Texas park.
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Great Sand Dunes National Park & Preserve
North America's tallest sand dunes rise 750 feet against the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, with alpine lakes and tundra at 13,000 feet above.
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White Sands National Park
The world's largest gypsum dunefield covers 275 square miles where white sand dunes shift up to 30 feet per year and swallow ecosystems.
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Haleakalā National Park
A dormant volcano where you stand above the clouds at 10,000 feet, then descend through alpine desert to rainforest in a single morning.
Explore Haleakalā →Deciding between two parks? Compare any two side by side →