Dealing with disappointment when visiting national parks

By Graham Duncan

There is still something rewarding to be found in travel experiences that don’t live up to our initial expectations.

In May, I visited Glacier National Park and Yellowstone National Park with students of my university in South Carolina. My mother’s family has a residence near Eureka, and I was excited to return to Montana with a group of travelers who could give me a new perspective on the places visited - whether for the first time or the tenth.

My co-leader and fellow professor, Sean, spent an entire semester leading students through inspiring conversations on the rhetoric of nature - how humans interact with and talk about nature, especially in our national parks. Some students even completed rhetorical analyses on specific national parks as a final project for the class, unpacking some of the unique communication choices that parks use to share information with visitors.

But, after months of discussing which hikes we’d take, looking at pictures of the breathtaking views we’d see, and even preparing for potential encounters with wildlife while away, some may have found the trip itself... disappointing.

There was still significant snow cover on Mount Brown in May, which meant cancelling our plans to climb to the top. Many of our hikes in Yellowstone were also impacted by weather events. Some in our group were hopeful to see a grizzly bear or a moose while in Glacier (from a safe distance, of course), but we were only graced by a few deer. And overcast skies meant the majestic mountaintops you can usually see from the shores of Lake McDonald were hidden by the clouds.

There is a tendency to set expectations too high when visiting some of our great national parks. Sean and I like to call this “iconic photo spot syndrome.” When we plan trips to Yellowstone, or Zion, or Glacier, or the Grand Canyon, we anticipate having the same experience we’ve read about, heard about or seen online. We may even anticipate recreating an experience we’ve had on a previous trip.

And when these places fail to live up to those expectations, we naturally find ourselves filled with unnatural disappointment.

But our national parks aren’t Walt Disney World. While they provide a lens through which we can see the raw beauty of the world we live in, they cannot always guarantee us the “scenic stops ahead.” The moose aren’t a cast of characters who clock out at the end of their shifts, and hikes to Avalanche Lake or Iceberg Lake aren’t the same as visiting Cinderella Castle. But while construction delays and unexpected closures along Going-to-the-Sun Road can be a bummer - especially for those who have waited months, even years to visit specific sites - there is still something magical about simply existing in a place like Glacier, even when the conditions are less than ideal.

I first began writing this column at our campsite in Madison Campground in Yellowstone, after returning from a hike to Fairy Falls. While we were out, bison had come to graze just yards away from where I’d laid my head the night before. Yet, as I went to pen the first few words of the same story that you’re reading now, the only evidence that remained was a pile of bison poop next to our picnic table.

This might be a hard sell, but I believe even this experience is truly magical. How lucky are we to have the chance to be this close to nature, and to rest our heads in the same places that wildlife calls home? How great is it that we can call this place home, too - even if it’s just for a few nights of camping - and remind ourselves where we’re really from?

Graham Duncan is a writer and English instructor at Lander University in Greenwood, South Carolina.