When is the Best Time of Year to Photograph Each of Our National Parks?

Denali, Arches, Bryce Canyon, and Rocky Mountain National Parks

Planning a trip to photograph some of our national parks? You will get better images if you visit a national park at its prime season of the year. But when is each park at its very best? And how about great locations that aren’t in the national parks? This article has answers.

Originally posted January 18, 2017. Re-posted February 8, 2018. Most recent update: March 29, 2022.

Tim Fitzharris Recommends The Best Seasons for the National Parks

National Park Photography by Tim Fitzharris

One of my favorite sources of information for the U.S. national parks is How to Photograph America’s National Park, Digital Edition (the new edition) or National Park Photography (older edition) by Tim Fitzharris. If you only get one photo guide book to the national parks, this should be it. For each park Tim gives descriptions of the best photos locations, photography advice, and the best seasons of the year to visit each of the parks. Here is a summary of the best time of year information.

Acadia – Spring Summer Fall*
Arches – Winter Spring* Summer Fall
Badlands – Spring Summer Fall
Big Bend – Fall Winter Spring* Summer
Bryce Canyon – Spring Summer Fall Winter
Canyonlands – Fall Winter Spring Summer
Death Valley – Fall Winter* Spring
Everglades – Fall Winter* Spring*
Glacier – Summer* Fall
Grand Canyon – Spring* Summer Fall Winter
Grand Teton – Summer* Fall* Winter
Great Smoky Mountains – Spring* Summer Fall*
Joshua Tree – Fall Winter Spring* Summer
Mount Rainier – Summer* Fall*
Olympic – Spring Summer* Fall
Redwood – Spring Summer Fall
Rocky Mountain – Summer* Fall* Winter
Saguaro – Winter Spring Fall
Shenandoah – Spring Fall*
Yellowstone – Spring Summer* Fall* Winter
Yosemite – Spring Summer Fall Winter
Zion – Spring Summer Fall Winter

Tim lists the seasons he considers worthwhile for doing photography in each park. The underlined seasons are better, and if a season is marked with an asterisk* that is even better yet. The exceptions are Bryce Canyon, Grand Canyon, and Zion which are equally wonderful all year around.

How accurate is this list? I’ve been to fourteen of these parks in the seasons Tim recommends and he is right on target. As an example, Tim says it is worth visiting Rocky Mountain National Park in summer, fall, and winter, with summer and fall being the very best seasons. I’ve been going to Rocky for decades and I’ve been there in every season of the year. I agree with Tim’s assessment. You can skip spring (unless you happen to be there anyway). From my perspective, winter, summer, and fall are all good with summer being better than winter, and fall is my absolute favorite due to the golden aspen and the elk rut.

So my own experience agrees with Tim’s recommendations, so I trust his advice for the places I haven’t been to yet.

There are two versions of his book, both are out of print, but you can get either version inexpensively via Amazon at the links below.

If we take just the best season for each park (underlined) from Tim’s list and re-arrange them by season, we get this list of the best parks for each season.

Any Season
Bryce Canyon
Grand Canyon
Zion

Best in Winter
Big Bend
Death Valley
Everglades
Yosemite

Best in Spring
Arches
Big Bend
Canyonlands
Everglades
Great Smoky Mountains
Joshua Tree
Redwood
Saguaro
Yosemite

Best in Summer
Badlands
Canyonlands
Glacier
Grand Teton
Mount Rainier
Olympic
Rocky Mountain
Yellowstone

Best in Fall
Acadia
Badlands
Grand Teton
Great Smoky Mountains
Mount Rainier
Rocky Mountain
Shenandoah
Yellowstone

Choosing the best parks for the season you will be shooting is a good way to have a great photographic experience.

QT Luong’s Extraordinary Photo Location Guide to All 59 National Parks

Treasured Lands by Q.T. Luong is far and away the best collection of photos taken in all of our national parks. This is a cross between a big, beautiful; coffee table book and a photo location guide. Luong doesn’t give you a lot of photography advice. Tim’s book is much better if you want photography advice. What makes it so valuable is that it gives you the location for every single photograph in the book. If you see an amazing photo and want to know where it was taken, you can look up the location. It also covers all 59 national parks while Tim’s book covers 20 of the best national parks (plus a few extra locations).

This past fall I went on a spur of the moment trip to Acadia National Park. I was my first trip. I didn’t want to carry Luong’s book with me, since it is so big, so I pulled it of the shelf and photographed every page of the Acadia National Park chapter with my iPhone. I used those iPhone photos (examples below) for reference while I was in Acadia, along with the chapter on Acadia in Tim’s book which I had with me. Some classic Acadia locations were in both books, but each book had some great locations that were not in the other book. I was glad I had the location information from both books.

Granite Ledges and Otter Cliff. Photo by QT Luong in Treasured Lands.

Each night at the end of the day I checked the weather forecast for the next day (weather helps determine the kind of location you should pick). Then I looked at the Acadia chapter in Tim’s book and the photos on my phone of the Acadia chapter in Luong’s book. Using the locations from both books I picked the locations I most wanted to photograph the next day.

Acadia National Park photo location map in Treasured lands.

Both books provide maps. Tim’s book has fewer locations but more detailed photography advice.

All of the Acadia photos in Treasured Lands with location descriptions.

Luong’s book has more photo locations but less photography advice.

Ocean Drive location description in Treasured Lands. Click for a larger version.

An example of the location information in Treasured Lands.

Lonely Planet Picks the Best Months to Visit the National Parks

I found the following interesting chart at Lonely Planet. The red bars mark the busiest time of the year for that particular park (which you should avoid if you can). You want to stick to the blue bars which are the best seasons in the opinions of the authors of the Lonely Planet guidebooks.

Lonely Planet Guide to the best seasons to visit the U.S. and Canadian National Parks

Let’s take Big Bend as an example. According to Lonely Planet, if you want to go to Big Bend, choose Feb-April or Oct-Nov. That is good advice, although winter in Big Bend has its charms (as Tim highly recommends), especially if you get a rare snow fall. Avoid Big Bend in the summer since it is too beastly hot (despite Tim’s recommendation).

I like Lonely Planet guidebooks for their tourist information and this chart in general gives you some good advice. Consider it a supplement to Tim’s advice. Where there are variations in opinion I would usually give preference to Tim’s recommendations. Professional photographers are usually more attuned to what other photographers want to photograph than the people who write for tourists in general.

Some of my favorite photo location guides. Click for a larger version.

The Best Time of Year for Other Locations

While Tim’s book (either version) gives good overall coverage of the most popular national parks for photography, and Luong provides the best location guide to all of the national parks, there are more specialized books that cover a specific national park, state, or region of the country in more detail. The Photographing the Southwest series by Laurent Martes is a truly superb example. He wrote three books covering the desert southwest (they are in the center of the above photo) and they are as good as it gets, not only for deciding on the time of year to show up, but also detailed information on the time of day, how to shoot, how to get there, and more. Each location is rated on a scale of 0 to 5 (using hearts, diamonds, spades and clubs) for Scenic Value, Photographic Interest, Road Difficulty, and Trail Difficulty.

One of the ratings pages from Photographing the Southwest, Volume 1. Click for a larger version.

This is a quick snapshot of one of the ratings pages. Lets look at one example. In Section 13 the first location is Dead Horse Point State Park. The visual and photographic interest is 5 which is as good as it gets. The dashed line for Road Difficulty means it is a paved road to the location that any vehicle can navigate. The Trail Difficulty is 1 which means it is an easy short walk from your vehicle to the viewpoint. You go to the page 237 for specific advice on the best time of day and the best way to photograph the location.

Dead Horse Point, early in the morning.

I followed his advice to be there early in the morning and created this image.

If you are going to the desert Southwest, these books are an absolute must. They are the gold standard of guidebooks. Martres has also picked other photographers to write books in the series for other states (Washington, Oregon, California).

For my former home state of Colorado, Lee Gregory’s two book set Colorado Scenic Guide, Northern Region and Colorado Scenic Guide, Southern Region are really first rate. Like the Martres series above, Gregory also rates locations for scenic value, roads, and the trails to the locations. His books are linked below. If photography in Colorado is your thing, Gregory’s books are a must read.

My favorite national park guides are listed below. You can find all of my favorite scenic location guides in this article.

A road trip to the national parks in the lower 48 states. Click for a larger version.

Want to go on a road trip to several national parks? Check out the map above and this article.