I don’t know if there’s a typo there or not, but Dead Horse Point has absolutely no views of the Grand Canyon whatsoever.
Canyon de Chelly National Monument, Arizona, the only one in Indian land. A Navajo guide can take you for a long or short walk along the canyon floor. Absolutely stunningly beautiful, and just the right size — the Grand Canyon is just TOO big, might as well be a “screen saver” (IMHO).
I’m also partial to Virgin Islands National Park (most of the island of St. John), though it’s recovering from a hurricane several years ago.
Also Algonquin Provincial Park in Ontario. Great canoeing.
Any particular state parks around Lake Tahoe you recommend? There are so many. The Mrs. and I enjoyed Emerald Bay State Park and Lake Tahoe Nevada State Park in addition to the National Forest outside of Emerald Bay.
Good one. When my then-four-year-old son glimpsed the jagged, snow-capped peaks across the lake, he asked me, “Dad, is that a hologram?” (I think he’d just learned the word from a Star Wars film).
There are so many places that it’s impossible to choose just one. A number of places I’ve been have already been mentioned (along with a lot of amazing-sounding places I haven’t been to).
One U.S. national park I have especially fond memories of is Theodore Roosevelt National Park in North Dakota. (It’s actually three separate sections, and I’ve only been to one of them, the North Unit.) It was pure serendipity that I found the place; I was on a road trip a couple of years ago, but hadn’t actually planned on going there (in fact I don’t believe I’d ever heard of the place); I saw a sign by the highway and thought “A national park named after Theodore Roosevelt out in the badlands of North Dakota ? Sure, why not?”
As American national parks go, it was astonishingly uncrowded. I wasn’t the only person there that day, but there were long stretches where there were no other people around as I drove the 28-mile-round-trip scenic drive (with lots of stopping to gawk and take pictures, of course). A little spooky at times.
There are amazingly weird rock formations (that look like Something very large is going to hatch from them) and great views of iconic American wildlife.
I am not a total moron. I took that second picture from inside my car, with the passenger window rolled down.
Yaak River and Yaak Falls. Ice-cold mountain water, thick forests.
Farragut State Park. Quiet in nature.
Kootenai River and Kootenay River, any section of it. What a great river to put a boat in.
Great Smoky Mountain National Park. The butterflies in the fall!
A very specific spot: In Grand Canyon NP, take South Kaibob Trail about 1.5 miles down to Cedar Ridge. When you reach the mule hitching rail, leave the main trail at about a 45 degree angle to the left. Follow a lightly used path about 100 yards and you will reach a large flat rock which overhangs the canyon wall. That is my favorite natural spot in the world. No matter how crowded it is on the South Rim I can always find solitude sitting on that rock. More than a thousand feet below the rim and isolated from the main trail (seems like 80% of hikers turn back at Ooh Ah Point anyway).
To avoid the crowds north rim of Grand Canyon only gets 10% of the visitors to the GC. It is closed in winter due to snow. And it is a forest right up to the canyon rim, very different from south rim but still great. Pictures or movies do not really capture the GC you have to see it in person.
Stopped by to mention the Johnson Shut-Ins, My favorite place in Missouri!! These are some quite unique rock/river formations.
I will also add Ozark National Scenic Riverways I have spent many a day swimming, floating and canoeing the rivers, the are as pristine as you could ever find.
Oh God. One year I was driving back from somewhere (Graveyard Fields, maybe?) along the parkway, and the swallowtails were out in force.
It was a massacre.
No matter how slowly I tried to drive, I was running over the butterflies sunning on the road, smushing htem in my windshield, plastering them into my fender.
It was traumatizing.
Lived in NC 49 years but never heard of big number of butterflies in the mountains in fall. Or maybe I learned and forgot. 
Then either the park’s boundaries have changed or what I’m calling the Grand Canyon (as seen on the linked pics) is not so grand and is just some spectacular canyon.
I mean I was right at the edge . . .
I think you were looking at Canyonlands.
When I was there, there had just been a large forest fire near the North Rim. The area had been evacuated, and I was there the first day it reopened. Driving down Route 67, I went right through the recently-burned area. Some fires were still smoldering. Spectacular, awesome views of thousands of burnt tree trunks. I wish I could return someday to see it regrowing.
Ah, okay, thanks.
So let me adjust my original post:
I just consider it a ‘natural area’. I grew up there. Got to enjoy the mountains and lake like no tourist will even come close to. Even just looking at it is impressive, but to be on the trails and areas I’ve had the good fortune to enjoy is more than I really deserve. So, it’s my favorite for that reason.
But, hey. Hit Nevada Beach, The Pines, Sand Harbor, Heavenly Valley, Genoa Peak and the entire trail system that leads to it. A good start. Paradise on Earth. I like going there to run a snowblower.
While a companion thread nominated Wyoming as ‘most boring state’ (though not Utah as IIRC). Ridiculous. WY has numerous roadside vistas that are ‘National Park class’, besides Tetons and Yellowstone NP’s (liked former better because of smaller crowds).
Among the ‘big five’ UT NP’s, we’ve been to all so far but Canyonlands. Capitol Reef was likewise our favorite because of fewer people. We went to Zion on a weekend in spring and it felt like a tourist theme park to some degree. At Capitol Reef, albeit a weekday a few days later, we hiked up spectacular slot canyons all by ourselves, and this wasn’t difficult to access, hardcore back country trails where you can also be alone in Zion, but minutes from the car.
Recently visited Killarney NP in Ireland which was really beautiful (and also enhanced by being pretty deserted, in an all day steady rain in November). But I (a NY’er) I have a special love for western US scenery. I also like the High Plains. Another deserted attraction is Pawnee Buttes in northeast CO, ~40 minutes of dirt road in and out, and lots of view of both windmills and oil/gas rigs (which doesn’t detract for me though), but spectacular buttes rising from total flatness (well, obviously the top of the buttes used to be ground level and everything else eroded down a few 100’, but anyway…).
In the last 3 years we’ve gone on spring break to southern Utah and hit all of the big 5. I’ve been to several in years past but this was a concentrated exposure to all of them. Zion, and Bryce are amazing, but very crowded. Staying in the park and getting up at (or before) dawn allowed us to have solitude on several hikes, but you always return to a zoo. Arches is very nice on a smaller scale, and we enjoyed our hikes there, but we were never alone.
Canyonlands has some great backcountry hiking, and I did a week long backpack there ages ago. My wife isn’t a huge fan of backpacking so we’ve settled on long dayhikes. But Capitol Reef has amazing variety, challenging hiking (and driving), eerie slot canyons, and stuff like the Temples of the Sun and Moon that are unique. Combine that with many fewer people and add pie, and you’ve got a winner.
I would say every national park I have ever visited.
Mt. Rainier, the view from 11,000 feet is spectacular, we could see Mt. St. Helens, Mt. Adams and Mt. Hood in Oregon.
Olympic NP, the rain forest, beaches, Hurricane Ridge.
North Cascades NP, lost on a mountain road, stopped for lunch and visited by a number of birds that had no fear of humans.
Redwoods NP, the trees are breathtakingly huge.
Crater Lake. Sunny warm day, not a cloud in the sky. The water couldn’t have been any bluer.
Glacier NP, Spectacular scenery, watching a mountain goat chase a guy that dared to get to close.
For pure beauty, I’ll vote for Arches. I love Grand Canyon and Yellowstone as well.
I’ll also give a shout-out to Custer State Park in South Dakota, near Mount Rushmore. The Needles are an interesting rock formation, and there’s tons of cool wildlife that’s easy to encounter.
Yellowstone is my favorite, but in terms of “bang for the buck,” Monument Valley can’t be beaten-
it’s spectacularly beautiful, and pretty uncrowded, which isn’t true for most other parks.