Planning

National Parks to Visit in May

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See January, February, March, and April. May is a great month to visit many parks, especially river and forest parks that are full of life in spring. I recommend Congaree, Cuyahoga Valley, New River Gorge, Olympic and Yosemite.

Congaree is a great place to kayak, so high water may allow you to roam more. But May is also when the fireflies all blink together. Recreation.gov holds a lottery in early April for evening passes during the week long synchronous firefly event mid May.

Cuyahoga Valley is popular in May as the Brandywine Falls are awash and the trails are surrounded by spring greenery. I like biking there, and the tourist trains run a full schedule in May also taking bikes.

New River Gorge may be best in May as the wildflowers are out on the trails, the temperature is just right, and the river runs fast for rafting.

Olympic for me is all about the rainforest. Go early, wear good hiking boots, a thermal layer and rain gear, but try to visit Hoh Rainforest and hike the Hall of Mosses when it’s wet and green. Visiting the rainforest is a unique national park experience, unlike mountain hikes or beaches. The park is beautiful during the summer, but it gets very crowded at Hoh beginning Memorial Day weekend.

Yosemite’s waterfalls all flow strong in May, and Bridalveil, Sentinel and Yosemite Falls are spectacular at peak snowmelt. Wildflowers bloom on the valley trails, the temperature is pleasant during the day, and it’s not as crowded as summer. Glacier Point viewpoint usually opens to vehicles in May, earlier now that there’s less snow.

You may notice that my recommendations on when to visit are often a little earlier than common advice, and that’s usually to avoid crowds, to take advantage of planning and because the climate is changing. Planning ahead is particularly important for saving time and money, as a simple campground reservation made six months in advance can put you in the best possible location at the best time for $30. Summer used to be the best time to visit most national parks, but many parks are now too crowded and too hot in July and August. But stay tuned, because I’ve got more national parks recommendations coming on the first Friday of each month.

Arches National Park

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Landscape Arch above spans over 100 yards. Photographs fail to render the three dimensional features. Only by hiking up the trail, turning that last corner and wandering around to view from different angles do the arches reveal their true nature. My head was spinning trying to take in the detailed patterns on rock faces, judge the sizes of dramatically shaped features, imagine the geologic timescale and focus on the variety of terrain in every direction at different distances.

The reason there are more arches here than anywhere else in the world is salt. As elsewhere, the land formed in layered deposits, rose up and eroded. The unique part was that there were more layers of salt from shallow inland seas which slowly migrated underground and piled up against a hard fault line, forming an unstable underground salt dome that liquified and caused many long straight vertical cracks in the rock layer above. The exposed fins of sandstone eroded from both sides forming many arches and small windows. (Bridges are entirely different than arches).

In theory, the most famous arches are easily explored. Only a few miles from Moab, the main park road climbs up through the dramatic red canyon and branches off towards Delicate Arch above a salty valley, past Balanced Rock towards the Windows and up above to the Devil’s Garden. Each area has parking, and many of the trails are easy. In March, there were only a few visitors in the morning, and every arch waited patiently for me to admire. But by April the park requires timed reservations due to crowds, and in summer the heat can become dangerous. So in practice, you should time your visit thoughtfully, especially if you want to capture sunrise or sunset views without crowds. This is one of my favorite parks for geologic features.

Here’s the link to my visits to all parks in Utah.

Capulin Volcano National Monument

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I don’t always plan my schedule well enough. I made it to this park about 30 minutes before closing, but just after they closed the volcano road to the top, which is why I took this photo from near the visitor center. Sometimes parks will let you drive out before sunset on your own after the visitor center closes, but apparently the volcano road is narrow and restricted to hikers for the last couple hours of daylight. I should have checked the hours more carefully, and I should have planned an extra day or two on this leg of my trip. I actually had to postpone two planned stops until next time in order to get back on track. I think volcanoes remind me of devastation more than renewal, so I tend to de-prioritize them when planning. Oh well, sometimes we need to admit our mistakes, so we can do better in the future, if we still have time. There’s a broader lesson in that.

Click to see my photos of all national park units in New Mexico.