I have raved here so often about how great our National Park System is in this
country that I sometimes get tired of hearing myself. I apologize for the drumbeat, but if there is one thing we should
be proud of in this country when it comes to government, it is the NPS. That said, there are some parks that rule and
some that suck. Some National Parks or Monuments or whatever, get their designation as a result of pork, because some
Senator or Congressman wants to dedicate the place that taffy was invented as a National Historic Site to please his
constituents.
So as consumers of the National Park System’s goods, to put things in strict economic terms, it is important for us to
know which parks are good and which are not. And that is where
this list by National
Geographic Traveler comes in handy. This is serious stuff. They’ve got some of the best folks in the world to
help them rank the parks: scores of park staff, scientists, environmentalists, etc. The
folks who know
what they are talking about. They rank the parks from best to worst not just in terms if whether the park is great or
not, but also according to whether the park is facing pressures from over-visitation, pollution, infrastructure
degradation and so on. Parks
like the Grand Canyon, Yosemite and Carlsbad Caverns, the list suggests, are being loved to death.
This is an excellent piece that really shed some light for me on what is going on in the parks system, and it could be
used as an excellent guide to help you determine which park to visit for your next vacation.