Visit Grand Teton National Park In The Shoulder Season

Above, the Grand Tetons mirrored in Jackson Lake. Photo by Armand Vaquer.

Although Grand Teton National Park is right next door to Yellowstone National Park, the crowds there are much less.

I have been to Grand Teton several times and enjoyed it during every visit. My most recent visit was in 2019.

AFAR has posted an article on visiting the park during the shoulder (or off) seasons. 

They begin it with:

Grand Teton National Park and the surrounding area has become a year-round outdoor haven for all ages. The springtime and fall are especially great times to go: From March through May, visitors can see wildlife transition from winter to spring. Yet the fall shoulder season offers wildlife sightings too and is just as beautiful, with bright yellow aspens, surprise snowstorms for early-bird skiers, and all the biking and hiking you could dream of in one of the country’s youngest mountain ranges.

There are endless itineraries for this part of Wyoming. Read on for more tips on seeing the beauty of the area during the shoulder season—and consider planning a trip. 

To read more, go here. 

Tips For RVing In The Off-Season

Above, a visit to the Grand Canyon was enjoyable as there
were no crowds in November 2016. Photo by Armand Vaquer

My preference for camping is during the spring months before the summer crowds start flooding into national parks and campgrounds.

Yellowstone National Park, to give one example, is a virtual zoo with traffic and scarce parking during the summer. 

RV Travel has posted an article on the joys of traveling without crowds with some valuable tips.

They begin with:

Oh, the joy of traveling without crowds! RVing in the off-season season in late October and November is outstanding. While it was chilly at times, there were no crowds anywhere! Both Grand Canyon National Park and Carlsbad Caverns were virtually empty. Lines at the Grand Canyon shuttles? Nonexistent! Vying for entrance tickets at Carlsbad? We had our choice of more than 300!

To read more, go here. 

Yosemite Crowded With No Reservation System

Above, no long lines at a Yosemite entrance gate in the off-season. Photo by Armand Vaquer.

There is one big reason why I prefer visiting national parks during the off-season: no crowds!

It seems that in recent years (during and since the pandemic), more people are heading off to "get away from it all" at a national park with hordes of others. It is even worse during holiday weekends.

At least during the off-season, while there are people present, there isn't hordes of them. I had an enjoyable time in Yosemite National Park in April 2016. I made camping reservations months before and there were no crowds when I got there.

Above, no crowded viewpoint parking areas in Yosemite during the off-season. Photo by Armand Vaquer.

Unfortunately, as there is no reservation system in place to enter Yosemite, massive crowds and lines of cars were the result.

This presented a problem recently during the Juneteenth holiday weekend. Either people had to wait four hours to enter Yosemite and/or being turned away at the entrance gate.

From SFGATE: 

When friends and family visit John Stone and his wife, Sandy, at their home in Groveland, a gateway town about a 30-minute drive from Yosemite National Park, they like to bring their guests into the park. They’ve been doing this for upward of 40 years, and it’s always been enjoyable, Stone said, but all that changed over the Juneteenth holiday weekend.

Stone’s cousin and nephew were in town, and when the group tried to enter the park Saturday morning at 10 a.m., they couldn’t get in.

“It was stop and go, stop and go, stop and go,” Stone says of the wait at the Big Oak Flat entrance along Highway 120. “And finally, the cars coming back down the hill were waving at us, telling us that we had to turn around, that they were turning around people at the gate. So we didn’t stay in line any longer.”

 To read more, go here.