Parks by Month

Whale season with the dry weather holding, though this is the warmest and most humid stretch.

The cave is 56°F on every day of the year, so the season is decided entirely by what is happening above ground — and what is happening above ground is the bat colony.

Warmest and most reliable weather, and the Watchman and Garfield Peak trails are fully dry.

Warmest month, but also the cloudiest; budget extra days for the peak to appear.

Best river levels for float trips, and the mosquito peak has passed.

Warmest lake water and the most reliable weather, at maximum crowd and maximum smoke risk.

Warmest water, calmest crossings, and the full trail network finally dry underfoot.

Bears disperse mid-summer and the falls quiet down before the September return.

Warmest water and the most reliable tour schedule, with the highest chance of rain.

Warmest conditions of the year, with mosquitoes on the dunes at a level few people expect.

Warmest water at Manzanita Lake and the darkest reliable night skies of the year.

The longest reliable weather window and the only time the high passes are fully melted out.

Warm, green and fully open, with the highest rainfall of the summer.

A fjord system that most people see from a cruise ship deck, and a very different park from the Bartlett Cove day boat — decide which trip you are actually taking before picking a month.

A coastal bear park reached only by floatplane, where the bears move from sedge flats to salmon streams across the summer and the viewing location changes with them.

One of the darkest measured night skies in the country attached to a 13,000-foot peak and a cave, four hours from the nearest city in any direction.

Three separate parks under one name — alpine, rainforest and coast — each with a different best month, which makes a single visit always a compromise.

A canyon so narrow and deep that parts of the floor get thirty minutes of direct sun a day, which makes the light window here narrower than almost anywhere else.