We took a national parks road trip during the pandemic. Here’s what we found
The original plan was Hawaii — a week on the beach to celebrate our 12-year-old son’s “graduation” from sixth grade, and our family’s escape from two months of working at home side by side.
Like so many others, we had to cancel that trip when Hawaii extended its visitor quarantine into the summer because of the coronavirus pandemic.
Our next thought: Let’s get in the RV and head for some open space, any open space. Get out of town and explore.
That led us to South Dakota and Wyoming — and visits to six National Park Service sites: Mount Rushmore National Memorial, Wind Cave National Park, Badlands National Park, Devils Tower National Monument, Yellowstone National Park and Grand Teton National Park for the last week of May.
We left Ada County for the first time in two months unsure what to expect. Here’s what we found:
A refreshing way to visit national parks
We have encountered some serious crowds, traffic and parking problems in recent years while visiting national park sites in Wyoming, Montana, Utah, California and Arizona.
We experienced none of that this time.
In fact, Yellowstone on Sunday, May 31, was so empty it was eerie. There were a few others at the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone; we couldn’t see another person for much of our time touring the West Thumb Geyser Basin; and Old Faithful was social distancing friendly with the smaller-than-usual gathering (although some folks still randomly sat next to our son).
Parking was plentiful at Rushmore and Badlands, traffic was minimal through Grand Teton, and Wind Cave (where the cave is closed due to a lengthy elevator repair) offered a quiet spot for a picnic even along its main road.
Only Devils Tower showed signs of what you’d usually expect from a National Park Service site in late May — and fortunately we beat that crowd by arriving early.
We chose South Dakota and Wyoming hoping the isolation of those sites would prevent the type of crowding that happened when the Utah parks opened — and because neither state was discouraging visitors. We had hoped to go to Theodore Roosevelt National Park in North Dakota, too, but the best route home was through Montana, which still had a visitor quarantine in place at the time.
There was a definite once-in-a-lifetime feel to the half-day we spent in Yellowstone — with no overnight accommodations, staying longer wasn’t possible — but there are signs that the national parks experience could be different throughout 2020. We have an August trip planned to Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado, and that site already has announced that we’ll need reservations to enter the park with capacity limited to 60%.
Yosemite National Park in California has implemented a similar system.
One tip for planning trips this year: Make sure you’re clear on what’s open, and what isn’t. Visitors centers generally weren’t open on our trip, but the gift shops at Rushmore were. Not all bathrooms were open, either. We also found many places that are secondary attractions — museums, for instance — were still closed.
Even Wall Drug, which hypes itself with signs spread across hundreds of miles of countryside, was closed (it reopened June 1).
What about masks? Social distancing?
Our family of three wore masks whenever we were around other people — inside and outside. When we were on trails, we wore multiclavas around our necks that we easily could pull over our faces, then drop when we were alone.
But we were in a very small minority.
Most of the people we encountered didn’t bother with masks — or with social distancing. Some people still walked three across on sidewalks, or crowded next to us at viewpoints. But it felt like our masks served as a reminder to some to give us space.
We also tended to take a passive approach — if we felt someone was going to crowd us, we just backed off and waited for them to leave.
Even at a gift shop that had signs encouraging guests to wear masks, we were the only ones wearing them.
The experience was similar in the communities we visited. Employees generally wore masks — as you’d see in Boise — but other folks didn’t. At the end of three days of driving through mostly open country, we landed in Custer, S.D., in the middle of Memorial Day weekend and were surprised to see so many people walking the downtown streets.
Downtown Rapid City seemed quiet, but the restaurant we visited for takeout — and its neighboring wine bar — were busy.
A self-contained way to travel
The only reason we felt comfortable traveling at all was our motor home — which is why RV travel likely will be hot this summer. We were able to avoid hotels, restaurants and most public bathrooms. We packed a week’s worth of groceries before we left Boise and restocked in Rapid City.
We prepared 25 of our 30 meals on the 10-day trip, mixing in an occasional takeout meal. I wore gloves while pumping gas — my wife bought a pair for each car for that specific purpose — and each of us carried a paper towel in our pocket (a “pocket towel”) for opening doors or touching other public surfaces. (“Does everyone have their ‘P.T.?’ ” my wife asked on a daily basis.)
We tried to walk the line between careful and paranoid, intent on keeping ourselves safe and doing our part to prevent more spread of the coronavirus.
But we didn’t let that stop us from enjoying ourselves, either.
Case in point: The South Dakota trip was inspired by a report I asked my son, Oliver, to write last year on a vacation he’d like to take. He read about Badlands and Wind Cave in a national parks book, and he knew that Yellowstone would be near our route. Among the activities he requested was a hike on the Notch trail at Badlands — which includes a log ladder to climb roughly 50 feet up a rock wall.
It certainly occurred to me that gripping those logs, even on an uncrowded day, wasn’t the best idea. But we’d forgotten to bring gloves on the hike, so we went for it anyway. We just made sure to use hand sanitizer when we were done.
Want to go?
If you’re looking for a future road trip, we thoroughly enjoyed our journey — even much of the driving.
We drove from Boise to Jackson, Wyo., through Grand Teton to Dubois, Wyo., and on to the Black Hills, staying two nights near Mount Rushmore, three nights in Rapid City, one night next to Devils Tower and one night in Cody, Wyo., on the doorstep of Yellowstone. You can stop at Craters of the Moon National Monument & Preserve near Arco on the way out or back, too.
Western Wyoming in late spring was beautiful, and we could have stayed longer in the Black Hills. We spent two days touring Custer State Park (wildlife, hiking, lakes, scenic drives), which is adjacent to Wind Cave, and one day enjoying the hiking and scenery in Spearfish Canyon. I hadn’t visited Badlands and Devils Tower in 31 years. Badlands was a cool place to explore — and the bighorn sheep lambs were adorable. I was uncertain of whether Devils Tower would be worth the side trip, but the walk around its base was an enjoyable way to spend a morning.
This story was originally published June 10, 2020 at 3:00 AM with the headline "We took a national parks road trip during the pandemic. Here’s what we found."
