The second-best national park in the whole country is right here in the Pacific Northwest, according to a new ranking from The Wall Street Journal.
You might assume that the best national park would be Yosemite, Yellowstone or Glacier. But that’s not the conclusion the Journal came to.
“We grounded our recommendations in cold, hard numbers that reveal, definitively, which park is best,” the newspaper said.
They gathered data to score the 63 national parks on four criteria: crowd size, the quantity and quality of the hiking, campsite availability and access to other outdoor activities.
They gave the most weight to crowd size (with the preference being not much of a crowd), and that probably plays a role in Washington’s North Cascades National Park landing at No. 2 in the rankings with a score of 78.89.
The top spot on the Journal’s list went to Isle Royale National Park in Michigan with 81.01 points.
North Cascades scored high for lots of activities and small crowds. “In North Cascades, around 400 miles of hiking routes lead up glaciated peaks and to electric-blue lakes,” the Journal says.
Mount Shuksan lies within North Cascades National Park.Marli Miller/UCG/Universal Images Group/G
Less than three hours northeast of Seattle, North Cascades boasts 505,000 acres (almost 790 square miles) of jagged glacier-covered peaks, forested valleys and more than 500 lakes, according to the National Park Service.
Oregon’s only entry in the rankings is Crater Lake National Park, which came in at No. 14.
Washington’s other national parks did all right in the rankings. Olympic landed at No. 15 and Mount Rainier is No. 25.
Mims Copeland is a social media producer and covers trending topics for The Oregonian/OregonLive. Reach her at mcopeland@oregonian.com
