Please slow down if you see a guy crouched down in the narrow space between road and cliffs, taking pictures of roadside plants… 
[edit:] a lot of the blue ride parkway tourists thought they should honk or shout while driving past me, for some reason
If you were here in October, that’s our busiest season because everybody comes up to see the fall colors. There’s usually too many cars and too many people during that time to properly enjoy the Parkway, especially on the weekends. Most of the tourists are there for the views and not the plants and they can be selfish to the point of being rude and destructive. Case in point: They always flatten all those Spiranthes below Rough Ridge by parking their cars right on top of them. Makes me mad/sad to the point that I’ve stopped going there in October just so I don’t have to see the damage. 
I’ve seen these guys in nature docs. It’s almost like they have anti-grav the way the can climb up cliffsides. I’d love to see one of those in person someday.
Outside of someone spilling oil in it randomly (there’s been a few tanker crashes on the road near it, whoops,) it does not! The state has done a LOT when it comes to river remediation, there’s been ongoing projects to remove all the defunct dams along the length of it, to the point where I think they’re almost complete - the Gorge dam in Cuyahoga Falls that blocks, well, Cuyahoga Falls, is the last one that needs to come down and the most expensive. I believe they’re set to start dredging the sediment in 2023 and once all that toxicity is processed, they’ll be able to take down the dam and expose the falls. https://spectrumnews1.com/oh/columbus/news/2022/11/01/gorge-dam-to-come-down-by-2026
Otters and Beavers have returned to the river, and actually, the beavers did a great job remaking a wetland in the park of their own volition. There was a plot of land that I believe used to be an autobody shop or a junkyard or something, it was along the old canal. While the parks service was trying to decide what to do with it while they cleaned up, the beavers came along, dammed up that section of the canal, and well, nature took its course! This area is great, its a phenomenal birdwatching area in the summer months. https://www.nps.gov/cuva/planyourvisit/the-beaver-marsh.htm[quote=“annkatrinrose, post:33, topic:37586, full:true”]
Man, you’re quite right. All of those are quite inconvenient, I can’t believe I forgot to remember all the difficulties of spending time in the smokies. Definitely look from a distance, its not worth having to deal with the damp and the inconveniences.
Definitely avoid the mountains and their dense fir forests, all those needles just are so pokey!
See look at all this fog? You don’t want to be here
If you go on the wrong trail you may encounter Llamas. I hear they spit, definitely don’t want to get near them
Fields of wildflowers? Just think of the allergies!
Yeah no reason to go there, no reason at all
Yeah the trilliums are… Lol. they’re a pain. Its so funny, coming from ohio where there’s basically like two or three trilliums to pick between, IDing them in the smokies is just massively conditional.
Since I grew up in Rhode Island, I have in mind to go back one day, and Beavertail is on my list.
Another beautiful Park in the Southern Cape of South Africa is Agulhas National Park. These photos aren’t from inside the park but in neighbouring reserves. Unique Fynbos vegetation with alot of relict temperate forest elements. The region is famous for its fierce cyclonic low pressure storms, and many parts of the Agulhas plain were completely flooded in the middle of last year. Some beautiful old Lighthouses remain on the coast, which is one of the more unspoiled coasts we have in our country. Eland (Taurotragus oryx) are the most common browsing antelope in the thickets along the dunes here
I think I need to visit South Africa now. It was never really on my radar, but we’re getting a lot of great pictures! I’m intrigued now.
Not something I thought I’d ever encounter in a North American park 
I once stayed at a B&B near Mendocino, CA on a little farm that kept llamas and chickens and let the guest feed the llamas in the evening (incidentally, it had walk on access to Van Damme State Park, which is also a very nice park. Lots of fungus and redwood trees). This is Hope. She was pregnant and the B&B was having a commpetition to let the guests name the babies. I suggested ‘Dolly’ and ‘Rama’.
Do reserves count as parks? I hope they do.
I wish to visit Putorana Nature Reserve for all the unique mountains there, Kronotsky Nature Reserve for geysers, volcanoes and bears, Wrangel Island Reserve for all the arctic mammals and birds.
And two I visited at least partially: Dalnevostochny Morskoy Nature Reserve and Kandalaksha Nature Reserve where you can go without thinking (but only after contacting the reserve ofc), it does worth it!
The Llamas supply the lodge on Mt. Leconte; the trail is too rocky to safely get horses up
It helps to tell us where Here is.
I case there are those interested in biodiversity in this park this ATBI list might be helpful. Only a small fraction have been reported on iNat.
From that page:" There are still an estimated 40,000-60,000 species that remain undiscovered in the Smokies"
Alabama
Oh excellent, thank you! I’m headed back down there in the spring so I’m hoping to add to my observations in the park
I would call them parks. The first three you mentioned are Unesco World Heritage Sites. All definitely on my wish list but likely to remain just that. They seem quite remote. I have yet to add Putorana to the World Heritage Natural sites project. Putorana is one of 60 sites that have yet to have a place or some kind of reasonable closeness. The other two areas look beautiful.
Hm, for something easily accessible there’s Prioksko-Terrasny Nature Reserve with observations here, it’s a nice place for many rarer species in the region, place that generates probably a fourth of species I haven’t seen.) And Meshchyora National Park which I only visited in winter, it has lynxes and wolves, also borders with Meshchyorsky National Park.
Frontenac State Park in Frontenac, MN, is along the Mississippi flyway and has the largest number of bird species recorded at any state park in MN. I love it for that and for the diversity of habitat. It is in the Driftless region and has amazing, beautiful bluffs. There is extensive prairie and also, of course, shoreline and riparian forest along the river.
Frontenac SP Association hosts an Instagram account, if you want to see more images. And follow us if you like.
Perhaps more to the point for this forum, there is a Frontenac SP iNaturalist project page, if you want to see - or contribute! - to what has been identified within the park boundaries.
Now has a place, Putorana Plateau World Heritage Site - is it Плато Путорана? I think I should put that in the place name or does it get translated? 3,684 observations, 2,174 RG Now I can add it to the project.
Depending on what your place is for, if reserve it’s Путоранский государственный природный заповедник (Путоранский заповедник), if place in unesco then probably Плато Путорана.
