30 Rock inspired vacations
Written By: David Adorno on September 21st, 2009 in Travel | No Comments »
Congratulations to 30 Rock for stealing the show (and almost every award) at the Emmy’s on Sunday night. If you’ve never seen 30 Rock, crawl out from underneath your rock and get with the program. The story of “30 Rock” is told through the comedic voice of Golden Globe winner Tina Fey (”Liz Lemon”) and features Golden Globe winner Alec Baldwin (”Jack Donaghy”) as a top network executive and Tracy Morgan (”Tracy Jordan”) as the unpredictable star of Lemon’s hit variety show, “TGS with Tracy Jordan.” Lemon constantly has her hands full, juggling corporate interference from Donaghy and off-the-handle star antics from Jordan, all while attempting to salvage her own personal life. In celebration of their accomplishments, we’re giving you the top 3 national parks to go rock climbing in the US.
1.) Yosemite National Park, California – Yosemite is internationally recognized for its spectacular granite cliffs, waterfalls, clear streams, Giant Sequoia groves, and biological diversity. Plain and simple, this place is gorgeous. Yosemite Valley represents only one percent of the park area, but this is where most visitors arrive and stay. El Capitan, a prominent granite cliff that looms over the valley, is one of the most popular rock climbing destinations in the world because of its diverse range of climbing routes in addition to its year-round accessibility.
2.) Joshua Tree National Park, California – More than just the place where the Entourage crew had a magical moment, Joshua Tree is a great location for year-round climbing. The park is extremely popular with rock climbers (who often refer to it as “JT” if they are locals). It was originally a winter practice area while Yosemite Valley and other parts of the Sierra Nevada were snowbound, but later became an area of interest in its own right. There are thousands of named climbing routes, at all levels of difficulty. The routes are typically short, the rocks being rarely more than 230 feet in height, but access is usually a short, easy walk through the desert, and it’s possible to do a number of interesting climbs in a single day.
3.) Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park, Colorado - The Black Canyon of the Gunnison’s unique and spectacular landscape was formed slowly by the action of water and rock scouring down through hard Proterozoic crystalline rock. No other canyon in North America combines the narrow opening, sheer walls, and startling depths offered by the Black Canyon of the Gunnison. The Black Canyon hosts a variety of ecosystems from pinyon pine, juniper and scrub oak forests at the rim, to the shady and vertical inner canyon walls, and down to the riparian community along the Gunnison River.
