How was your lodging experience in the National Park System this year?/Kurt Repanshek file
It's no secret, it's constantly getting a bit more expensive to stay in a lodge inside a national park. But is the experience also rising, or is it not keeping track with the cost?
Of course, when rating your 2021 lodging experience, you need to keep in mind the curveball the coronavirus pandemic threw concessionaires. There were staffing issues and requirements that affected dining room service.
Keeping those mitigating factors in mind, where did you have your best lodging and dining experience, and where was your worst?
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Comments
Changing the LeConte lodge name does not change history or erase it.
I have hiked 60 of the National Parks! Best experience was Jenny Lake Lodge cabins in Grand Teton National Park! Gorgeous cabins! Tied for best are the Roosevelt cabins at Crescent Lake in Olympic National Park. Worst was the lodge at Mesa Verde National Park. The walls are paper thin and you can hear everything all over the building.
We stayed at the North Rim Grand Canyon Lodge in July in a Frontier Cabin. Definitely rustic but super clean and beautifully situated among the pines with even a tiny view of the canyon! Trails were close by. Sunset and mornings overlooking the canyon from the Lodge veranda were awesome. Find your sunset spot early! Take out food from the deli/snack shop was nothing special and pricey.
We also had a stay at the Big Meadows Lodge at Shenandoah in September. Our one bedroom suite was a bedroom plus another cabin-sized sitting area with a fireplace, and had a small porch. Really spacious and nice view. There is a trail right behind the lodge. We would stay in either of these park lodgings again!
Lake Crecent Lodge in ONP, National Park Lodge in MRNP, Mossy Mountain BnB outside Glacier, have been our best. Luckily we've been able to avoid the worst, which are best not mentioned. As a retired NPS ranger who used to inspect them, married to a retired hotel pro from Switzerland, I know running lodging in and around parks ain't easy.
There's certainly nothing wrong with rustic. To me that's really what the national park experience is about, espexially since they're priced such that most people can affford them. The development of higher end lodging in our national parks started out as an incentive for wealthy and connected (i.e. politicians) visitors to support our national parks, but often it seems that they leave out the people who can't afford over $700/night at Jenny Lake Lodge or $400/night at the Ahwahnee Hotel. I like egalitarian.
My memories were of staying at a basic cabins or even camping. The (now dismantled) Giant Forest Village had extremely inexpensive cabins, yet were within walking distance of the General Sherman Tree. I stayed at one of the Roughrider Cabins at Roosevelt in Yellowstone. Just a cast iron stove for heat and a basic bed, but I got up in the morning and saw one of the most amazing sunrises I've ever seen.