Free Entrance Days in the National Parks

[ashling]

April 19-20
opening weekend of National Park Week

August 25
National Park Service Birthday

September 27
National Public Lands Day

November 11
Veterans Day

Only 133 of our country's 401 national parks usually charge an entrance fee. So start Planning Your Visit!
If you're planning a trip that includes multiple national parks, you might consider the $80 annual pass that provides entrance to all national parks, national wildlife refuges, national forests, and many other Federal lands-more than 2,000 in all. The America the Beautiful National Parks and Federal Recreational Lands Pass is offered free to all active duty military members and their dependents. Information on these and other pass options is available online.

*Fee waiver includes: entrance fees, commercial tour fees, and transportation entrance fees. Other fees such as reservation, camping, tours, concession and fees collected by third parties are not included unless stated otherwise.

http://www.nps.gov/findapark/feefreeparks.htm

[Brother Buzz]

1. April 19-20 doesn't sound to cool at Glacier National Park

Going-to-the-Sun Road usually isn't open until mid June. I'm just saying

[Ptah]

3. 2014 Spring Plowing Photos - GlacierNPS

https://www.flickr.com/photos/glaciernps/sets/72157643809612785/

[Brother Buzz]

4. Punching into the lodges in the valleys so they can start work for a May opening

Going-to-the-Sun Road over the pass, the Continental Divide, is still down the road a bit, and is a formidable task.

The road is one of the most difficult roads in North America to snowplow in the spring. Up to 80 feet (24 m) of snow can lie on top of Logan Pass, and more just east of the pass where the deepest snowfield has long been referred to as Big Drift. The road takes about ten weeks to plow, even with equipment that can move 4000 tons of snow in an hour. The snowplow crew can clear as little as 500 feet (150 m) of the road per day. On the east side of the continental divide, there are few guardrails due to heavy snows and the resultant late winter avalanches that have repeatedly destroyed every protective barrier ever constructed. The road is generally open from early June to mid October, with its latest-ever opening on July 13, 2011.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Going-to-the-Sun_Road

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

2. When I was a kid, my family went to Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico

The size, depth, length, and beauty of this underground wonder still continues to impress me and I would one day like to go back (look at how far away the people are in the upper middle portion of the photo). The 60s film Journey To The Center Of The Earth was partly filmed here. And the evening event of the emergence of three million bats from the entrance is worth the visit alone.