Best Of The Parks Tenderfoot Rates National Treasures

Two years ago, the Chicago Tribune picked me, a city boy, to visit and write about 25 of America’s 54 national parks.

I have never lived in any community with a population of less than a million.

From all of my apartments, over the years, I easily could walk - not hike - to a bus stop or a subway station.

During childhood, my grandparents did welcome me to their Michigan farm for three weeks every summer, which was hardly an idyllic situation. It involved a forced estrangement from the Good Humor man and lots of sneezing. (My system, while smog-tolerant, became quite literal about hay fever.)

So mine was a series written from the perspective of a tenderfoot. I entered 25 parks; each one pumped me full of wonder and excitement. In other words, I approached the assignment as a naive, babe-in-the-woods urbanite, the least sophisticated person you’re likely to meet in the vicinity of fields and streams.

The parks transformed me in many beautiful and mystical ways, most of them beyond words.

But I’m no less opinionated. Now that I’ve made my appointed rounds, it’s time to deliver a few prizes:

Best wildlife sightings: Katmai National Park in Alaska, where brown bears grab spawning salmon from the streams and ignore the gawking humans.

Best scenery: All 25 looked terrific. That’s one reason why they qualify as national parks. Yosemite and Glacier might be the winners, if I were forced to choose at bowie knifepoint.

Best nearby town: Anchorage. It tries to be touristy, but for the most part the city is real - industrious, problematic, with a smidgen of culture. I chose it because its trains, planes, automobiles and buses efficiently transport people to far-flung and otherwise impenetrable wilderness.

Best hiking: Denali National Park. The glacial moraines are nature’s pavement, and the roads that allow vehicles can be counted on one finger. The walking is in blessed silence, the mountain scenery overwhelming.

Best driving: Glacier National Park and the Grand Tetons in a photogenic photo finish. Their roads always show off the most attractive mountain profiles and most satisfying closeups one can see through a windshield.

Best human history: Yellowstone, the oldest park. Learn its past and you will know most of the saga of the West and its leading players, from natives to insensitive exploiters.

Best geological history: Yellowstone. Its ongoing volcanic activity and ancient mountain rocks just about say it all.

Best variety: Olympic National Park. Chilly mountain passes, sweltering rain forest, crashing ocean, pristine glacial lakes - all stuffed inside a few-hundred-square-mile section of northwestern Washington State.

Best vehicles: Those old scarlet ragtop motor coaches on Glacier’s Going-to-the-Sun Road.

Best thrill: Standing on the edge of the Grand Canyon, only an inch of outcropping between you and the 5,000-foot drop into the frothing Colorado.

Best park to see if you can see only one: Grand Canyon. You live in America. No excuses.

Best park to blend smoothly into its surrounding state: Isle Royale, a pleasing chunk of Michigan’s north country.

Best shiver of deja vu: Yosemite. After thousands of pictures, there it is! And better in person than on film.

Best scare: The terrifying desolation of the Badlands at sunset.

Best food: The lake trout at Isle Royale. They were minding their own business in Lake Superior only two hours prior to the frying pan.

Best wine list: The Ahwahnee Hotel dining room in Yosemite, a showcase of fine California labels.

Park I would gladly live in: Acadia in Maine. Maybe it’s short on grandeur, but the trailhead to Interstate Highway 95 is right outside the boundary, providing quick access to Portland, Boston, New York and Philadelphia.