Replying to:
Jeffery Rachford
August 18, 2025 at 11:22 AM EDT
Congrats on a successful cross country trip. I enjoyed reading it with being a traveler myself. Gave me some ideas for future trips in the coming few years. If you get back to the Pacific NW again, highly recommend going to Mt. Saint Helens in Washington. The hiking there is amazing in the foothills of the volcano, but go there late morning. By then, the morning fog burns off that heavy cloud cover over the volcano. Sodona, AZ is also highly recommended too. Valley of Fire in NV is really good hiking too. Red Rock outside Las Vegas is another awesome park to hike. Glad you mentioned the volume of visitors issue, that will definitely affect my decision to visit some parks. That yearly National Park System card is well worth the money for trips like this. I justified it with 6 parks out west alone, and more to come here in the coming months. Death Valley, CA is one of my favorite parks, just not during a storm as I found out in February. Being hit by a dirt devil is not fun. Lake Mead area also a really nice area too. (I'm Aaron's uncle from IN). Good job on the pictures too. If you like history, visit all the different forts along the east coast. Each one is different and has it's own history. Fort Pulaski was one of the better ones.