Am I going to melt in August?

[GrazingGoat1966]

Just a bit of confirmation please good residents of the Golden West. With this being our 6th visit to the states, but our first during the northern summer, I require some info pls. Am going on a 3 week roadtrip through the National Parks of the West starting Aug 12. In a nutshell, Vegas thru Grand Canyon, then thru Arches, Canyonlands, Grand Tetons, Yellowstone, Glacier, North Cascades, Olympic, Mt Rainier, thru Oregon to Crater Lake, Lassen Volcanic, Yosemite thru Death Valley to Zion, Bryce, GSE and back to Vegas. (Yeah yeah I know it's a lot of driving but when you come all the way from Australia, you cram as much in as you can in your time).

I'm pretty much resigned to heatwave conditions for the southern part of the trip, but what should I expect up North/ I'm talking Yellowstone, Glacier, thru Washington State etc. Will I have some more temperate conditions or am I whistling Dixie?

We finish with 10 days at WDW from Aug 29 to Sep 8 so if I've got any moisture left in my body, I'm sure will be ripped out by the Florida heat and humidity anyway!

Thanks in anticipation.

 

[skiingfast]

I would expect that you will encounter temperatures as low as 10C at night when you are in the rockies. If you are realy lucky or unlucky it may even snow. It a remote chance but a odd snow storm can come through in Summer.

In Nevada and Arizona and the Mojave in Southern California you may see temperatures as warm as 45-50C.

Remember that you are doing something similar to driving across Australia and will encounter Rainforest and desert. Going from the lowest to highest elevations.

 

[GrandBob]

Skiingfast is right -- very diverse climates. Still, it sounds like one heckuva trip. You'll love it.

However, the one destination that really worries me is Death Valley. 50 degrees C would be very common for Death Valley in August. It's dangerous driving at that time of year -- warm enough to melt tires, overheat engines, and cause heat stroke in very little time. I would very seriously consider removing that destination from your agenda.

Other than that, have a great time! Yes, you'll encounter 40 or 45 degrees C in Las Vegas, but you'll also probably be indoors there during the heat of the day.

-Bob

 

[GrazingGoat1966]

Onya Bob. Yes the Death Valley section of the trip will most likely get deviated around. Mind you driving from Lee Vining thru to Cedar City, we will have to traverse some fairly barren territory regardless, but I appreciate your comments re Death Valley.

 

[skiingfast]

Other than that, have a great time! Yes, you'll encounter 40 or 45 degrees C in Las Vegas, but you'll also probably be indoors there during the heat of the day.

-Bob

This is a very good point. Most of the hot areas you will spend mostly in AC and most of the cooler areas you will spend mostly outside.

 

[GrazingGoat1966]

Just seen Death Valley is touching 51C Saturday and Sunday!!!! I can't even begin to comprehend those sorts of temperatures.
Will definately be deviating around there when our road trip begins in 4 short weeks.

 

[Helene]

I have no tips, as I've never travelled out west before myself. I just wanted to wish you well an your trip, it sounds absolutely fantastic

 

[GrazingGoat1966]

Thanks Helene. Traversed the country from West to East and back before but this is the first time heading further up north than Yellowstone and through the Pacific Northwest. Whilst seeing the southwest's temps nudging 40+C it's a relief to see temps in the north in the low to mid 20'sC.

Thanks for your best wishes. Much appreciated!

 

[mkarizona]

Grand Canyon, Zion, and Bryce should all be under 30C in August.

 

[GrazingGoat1966]

Yeah thanks mkarizona. Been keeping an eye on weather.com and the temps in that part of the world are fairly temperate. My M-I-L lives in AZ so I'm fairly familiar with the Southwest, but August is a new experience for me.

 

[GrazingGoat1966]

For those that may be interested.....
Just completed our roadtrip 2 days ago. 14 National Parks in 14 days was the end result. Successfully negotiated Grand Canyon, Arches, Canyonlands, Tetons, Yellowstone, Glacier, North Cascades, Mt Rainier, Crater Lake, Lassen, Yosemite, Bryce, GSE and Zion inside 2 weeks and 5387 miles on the KIA's speedo.
Hottest temps were at the start and end of the trip (outside Vegas). From GC onwards, the hottest we hit was in low 30'sC, all the way down to single figures in Glacier NP. No rain for entire trip. Hugely overcast along Oregon coast for the day we were there. Snow still on ground at Glacier, North Cascades and Mt Rainier. Wildlife most visible at Bryce and Glacier....almost non existent at Yellowstone.

Anyone who reckons that you cant at least scratch the surface of the Parks with limited time is deadset kidding themselves. Have a go. You wont regret it!!

 

[disneyfaninaz]

I am quite impressed. There are some Americans who haven't even been to that many parks, let alone in 14 days. I hope you got a nice taste of each of them and will want to come back and spend more time in some. I can't imagine how you saw anything in Yellowstone with just 1 day. It took us 5 days to see it!

 

[choccieaddict]

For those that may be interested.....
Just completed our roadtrip 2 days ago. 14 National Parks in 14 days was the end result. Successfully negotiated Grand Canyon, Arches, Canyonlands, Tetons, Yellowstone, Glacier, North Cascades, Mt Rainier, Crater Lake, Lassen, Yosemite, Bryce, GSE and Zion inside 2 weeks and 5387 miles on the KIA's speedo.
Hottest temps were at the start and end of the trip (outside Vegas). From GC onwards, the hottest we hit was in low 30'sC, all the way down to single figures in Glacier NP. No rain for entire trip. Hugely overcast along Oregon coast for the day we were there. Snow still on ground at Glacier, North Cascades and Mt Rainier. Wildlife most visible at Bryce and Glacier....almost non existent at Yellowstone.

Anyone who reckons that you cant at least scratch the surface of the Parks with limited time is deadset kidding themselves. Have a go. You wont regret it!!

sounds fantastic, are you doing a trip report with photos?

 

[disneyfaninaz]

I second that! Trip report! Trip report! Trip report!

 

[GrazingGoat1966]

Will do when I get home. Biggest problem is that my photos look to be too large of a file to be displayed on the disboards site. If I can come up with a solution I will post photos within the next week.

Thanks for your interest!

 

[GrandBob]

Will do when I get home. Biggest problem is that my photos look to be too large of a file to be displayed on the disboards site. If I can come up with a solution I will post photos within the next week.

Thanks for your interest!

There's a free program to do simple editing of photo files --
http://www.irfanview.com/

I use it all the time to edit files for uploading. There's an item on the "image" menu to resample/resize photos. You can do it by number of pixels or percent of original picture. I find that using 25% of original size works well for 5-10 megapixel images. It reduces them to a reasonable size for viewing. And it reduces a 2 MByte jpeg to around 100 KBytes.

HTH,
Bob

 

[GrazingGoat1966]

Thanks Bob, Will give it a go!!

 

[disneyfaninaz]

Will do when I get home. Biggest problem is that my photos look to be too large of a file to be displayed on the disboards site. If I can come up with a solution I will post photos within the next week.

Thanks for your interest!

You need to download your pictures to a site like Photobucket anyway to put on the DISboard. Photobucket allows you to pick the picture size, small, medium, large, etc. before you copy them to the board.

 

[GrazingGoat1966]

Posted some photos of our National Parks trip at last

www.photobucket.com

enter my user name - grazinggoat1966 - in search box and follow the links to my (very amateur!!) photos if interested. Also posted photos of our DisneyWorld trip as well.

A national parks roadtrip Trip Report is on the Australia disboards site at-

"A slightly delayed OzTR...."

(Sorry I'm not that computer literate to successfully post a link!!)

Hope you enjoy and have a laugh.