Accessible Trails in National Parks
Accessible Opportunities in National Parks
Accessible Vistas in National Parks
Parks with Accessible Camping
Parks with Accessible Picnic Areas
America the Beautiful
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Accessible Opportunities in National Parks
The National Park Service provides a variety of programs, exhibits and informational opportunities for all of our visitors. Whenever possible parks have provided the same opportunities for visitors with disabilities – though in many cases the opportunities are designed specifically for disabled visitors based often on the type of disability. The following is a list of trails that have been made more accessible to our visitors with disabilities.
Alaska Region
Denali National Park and Preserve, Alaska
Sign language services are available upon request. When purchasing bus tickets, visitors should let their reservation agent know of their need. For other park programs, please call (907)683-2294. Two-day advance notice is required.
Kenai Fjords National Park, Alaska
All public use cabins have wheelchair accessible decks and doors. Assistance may be required to access the cabins from the beach.
Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve, Alaska
There are two public use cabins at Peavine on the Chitistone River in the heart of Wrangell-St. Elias. The cabin that is larger and closer to the airstrip has been renovated to meet accessibility standards. The adjacent outhouse also meets accessibility standards. If visitors can get their wheelchairs into and out of a bush airplane and can navigate the gravel pathway from the airstrip to the cabin (approximately 400 yards), they may find this the perfect wilderness retreat. We suggest you call the park at (907)822-5234 a couple of weeks in advance of your trip to Peavine Public Use Cabin so that rangers can double check the brush along the pathways before your arrival.
A Hearing Helper Tour Guide System (216 MHz) is available for any of the regularly scheduled National Park Service ranger programs and for the Mill Tours provided by St. Elias Alpine Guides. The system amplifies the sound of the program’s leader’s voice. It can accommodate up to six participants at a time. St. Elias Alpine Guides offers multiple Mill Tours each day. To ensure the system is available for the program you would like to attend, please contact the Kennecott District Interpreter at (907)822-5234 to request it for ranger programs or St. Elias Alpine Guides at (907)554-4445 to request it for Mill Tours.
Intermountain Region
Arches National Park, Utah
The visitor center has several touchable exhibits.
Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument, New Mexico
A 360-degree view CD ROM is available at the Gila Visitor Center for viewing by persons who cannot make the 1-mile, 180-foot elevation gain hike to the cliff dwellings. The CD ROM shows the interiors and exteriors of the four caves/dwellings open to the public and is offered free to people with disabilities who specifically ask for it.
Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona
Please see http://www.nps.gov/grca/parknews/upload/AccessibilityGuide06.pdf for information about the accessibility of river trips, facilities, and more at the park.
Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming
The Jenny Lake Boating shuttle boats are ADA compliant. Although none of the concessioner activities, such as river trips, horseback riding, and mountain climbing, are ADA compliant, all concessioners will work with interested visitors to make necessary accommodations.
Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve, Colorado
Visitors who use wheelchairs can venture into the dunefield. Two sand wheelchairs – chairs especially designed for over-sand travel – are available for loan at Great Sand Dunes’ visitor center. One is designed for adults, and one for children. Although helpers must push the chairs, their large inflatable tires allow short, fun trips. Please note: the adult chair is not suitable for very large adults and should be borrowed only by those who need a chair for access.
Also at Great Sand Dunes, visitors in wheelchairs can camp in the backcountry. Please call the visitor center at (719)378-6399 to reserve or find out more about the accessible backcountry campsite at Sawmill Canyon. The site, also available if asked for in person, is for disabled visitors who want a backcountry experience but cannot hike to a backcountry campsite. The site is located 0.7 mile north on the Medano Pass Primitive Road. With a 2 WD vehicle, one can reach a parking area near the campsite. The two-car parking area and the camp can accommodate up to four wheelchairs. The hardened trail leading from the road up to the campsite is 0.1 mile long and has a maximum grade of 6%. The site’s facilities include an elevated tent pad, an accessible picnic table, a fire grate, firewood and food storage containers, and an accessible privy.
The above information and more, about the accessibility of the visitor center, other campsites, a picnic area, and interpretive programs, can be found at http://www.nps.gov/grsa/planyourvisit/accessibility.htm.
Padre Island National Seashore, Texas
The Environmental Education program at Padre Island National Seashore (PAIS) has developed specialized interpretive opportunities to meet the needs of the United States’ diverse population. One group that has taken advantage of the educational opportunities at PAIS for the last six years is Christian Record Services (CRS). Sponsored by the Seventh-day Adventist Church, CRS offers services to the blind in over 60 countries. Each year, CRS holds a weeklong camp for blind youths and adults called “Sea Venture Camp.” The program provides a wide range of educational and recreational opportunities for the campers.
PAIS has developed an array of activities to address their learning objectives and abilities. The program is presented in Spanish and English, since many campers are from Mexico or are relatively recent immigrants to the United States. With its bilingual presentation, the program uses raised maps created by park interpreters to help campers understand the park’s geographic location relative to the rest of the Gulf of Mexico and to help interpret the park’s geologic story. The park’s animals are examined in depth by using skulls, shells, feathers, skins, and bones from wildlife commonly found within the national seashore. Campers can touch and explore the individual specimens so that they can better appreciate the animals’ sizes and shapes and discover the unique adaptations that help them survive.
The program also includes a trip to the beach, where campers have the chance to wade into the surf, help pull a seine, and use other collecting equipment to capture and gently handle some of the sea creatures in the surf zone. With the assistance of sighted staff members, the campers hold and learn about the variety of invertebrates and fish that inhabit the shallow coastal waters. The activities are geared toward helping campers develop a greater appreciation and understanding of the diversity of species found on barrier islands.
Many other educational opportunities at PAIS are also suitable for those with physical disabilities thanks to beach wheelchairs that visitors may use at no charge. They are made of stainless steel and have oversized wheels to prevent them from sinking into the sand. Because the chairs are designed not only for the sand but also for use in shallow water, they enable those with severe physical impairments to experience the ocean and the wonders of being on a natural beach. Ramps allow visitors access to both the visitor center and the beach itself so that all may participate in the park’s interpretive programs. For additional information on programs at PAIS, please contact the Malaquite Visitor Center by calling (361)949-8068.
Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado
Please see http://www.nps.gov/romo/planyourvisit/upload/access_brochure-2.pdf for good information about accessibility in the park. This brochure provides information about facilities, campgrounds, trails, and more.
Saguaro National Park, Arizona
In the winter and spring of 2007, the west district of the park offered a ranger-guided walk/hike on its accessible trail (the Desert Discovery Trail). This program targeted visitors in wheelchairs. It was only lightly attended, but the park anticipates offering the program again this winter/spring and will make some attempts to market the program better locally. Last winter/spring, it was offered twice a month. All of the park’s interpretive programs are listed monthly on its website, www.nps.gov/sagu.
Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming
There is an accessible backcountry campsite at Ice Lake. The site can be reached from the trailhead located approximately 3 miles east of Norris Junction or 10 miles west of Canyon. The site is situated about .5 mile from the trailhead on an accessible backcountry trail. The site is reserved for those with disabilities, parents with children under six years of age, and adults over 62 years of age. Please call the NPS Backcountry Office at (307)344-2160 for information about and reservations for this site.
For more information about accessibility in the park, please consult the website http://www.nps.gov/yell/planyourvisit/parkwide-access.htm.
Midwest Region
Herbert Hoover National Historic Site, Iowa
Audio stations can be found at key locations throughout the site. Written scripts of the audio stations are available at the visitor center’s information desk. A walking tour on audio tape is also available at the visitor center’s information desk.
Homestead National Monument of America, Nebraska
The monument provides sign language interpreters at major special events like Homestead Days.
Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore, Indiana
The auditorium in the visitor center is equipped with assistive listening devices. With advance notice, the park provides a sign language interpreter for interpretive programs.
Keweenaw National Historical Park, Michigan
The Calumet Walking Tour meets in front of the Keweenaw History Center (the historic C&H Public Library) on the corner of Red Jacket Road and Mine Street in Calumet, Michigan. The program runs only in summer. On the tour, visitors explore the former Calumet & Hecla Mining Company’s core industrial area and Calumet’s historic downtown. The tour ends at the historic Calumet Theatre, the country’s first community-built opera house, which has been in continuous operation since it opened in 1900. The tour lasts 2 hours, is 1.5 miles long, and covers easy terrain. The tour is accessible with assistance.
The Keweenaw Heritage Sites are non-Federal park partners that assist the park with interpreting various aspects of the story of copper mining on the Keweenaw Peninsula. The following sites offer accessible services to visitors.
- A.E. Seaman Mineral Museum
- Calumet Theatre
- Coppertown Mining Museum
- Fort Wilkins Historic State Park, located on Hwy. US-41 in Copper Harbor at the tip of the Keweenaw Peninsula. Built in 1844, this military fort provided order on the Keweenaw frontier during the early days of the “copper rush.” The park has programs each evening, costumed interpreters, restored buildings, and museum exhibits. Accessible camping and day-use areas are available. Mid-May to mid-October. For more information, please call (906)289-4215. TTY/TDD711 ( Michigan Relay Center).
- Houghton County Historical Museum
- Ontonagon County Historical Society
- Porcupine Mountains Wilderness State Park, located 15 miles (25 km) west of Ontonagon. Michigan’s largest state park contains numerous historic copper mining sites and offers an accessible visitor center and interpretive programs. Accessible camping and day-use areas are available, including the famous overlook at Lake of the Clouds. Mid-May through mid-October. For more information, please call (906)885-5275. TTY/TDD711 ( Michigan Relay Center).
- Quincy Mine & Hoist, located on Hwy. US-41 just north of Hancock. The gift shop, cog-wheel tram, and underground mine tour are accessible. Open daily from June 15 to October 31; varying hours throughout the remainder of the year.
- U.P. Firefighters Memorial Museum
Knife River Indian Villages National Historic Site, North Dakota
Knife River offers the special service of transport to the village sites for visitors with mobility impairments. The gravel trail to two of the sites can be negotiated by some electric wheelchairs or non-powered wheelchairs with assistance, but it cannot be considered accessible. For visitors who cannot get to the villages, there are two electric carts, including one that has a wheelchair ramp and deck. Since an interpreter drives the carts, the trip is essentially a guided tour.
Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, Michigan
Sand wheelchairs are available at the Maritime Museum boathouse and at the Dune Climb to enable handicapped individuals to enjoy the dunes and beaches. The sand wheelchair at the Dune Climb is kept at the Dune Center. The wheelchairs must stay in the area where they were loaned.
The park has installed a permanent assistive listening device at the information desk of the Philip A. Hart Visitor Center.
For interpretive programs in the visitor center, ranger-led walks, and the evening programs in the lakeshore’s campgrounds, portable wireless FM assistive listening devices are available. They are available year-round at the visitor center and June to September at the Platte River Campground Office and the D. H. Day Campground Office. A portable wireless device is also available at the Glen Haven General Store Memorial Day to Labor Day. Rangers are trained in the use of this technology. Visitors are urged to request the amplification devices by calling the visitor center in advance of an interpretive program at (231)326-5134 ext 328.
Wind Cave National Park, South Dakota
The visitor center and the cave are accessible to people with limited mobility. Limited areas of the cave are accessible to wheelchairs. Please call ahead to make special arrangements or ask at the information desk for a special tour. There are fees charged for these services. Please contact the park at (605)745-4600 for more information.
National Capital Region
Chesapeake & Ohio Canal National Historical Park, Potomac River, DC, Maryland, West Virginia
The canal boat rides are wheelchair accessible. The boat that leaves from Georgetown has a single level deck. The new boat, the Charles F. Mercer, which leaves from Great Falls, has a lift that makes its upper deck, like its lower one, accessible.
Sign language interpreters are available upon request.
Northeast Region
Acadia National Park, Maine
Carriages in the Park, the park concessioner that operates Wildwood Stables, has two wheelchair accessible, horse-drawn carriages made possible by Friends of Acadia. Each accommodates two passengers using wheelchairs and several additional passengers. These carriages carry wheelchair users into scenic areas of the carriage roads that may be inaccessible otherwise. Please call (207)276-3622 in advance for reservations. Tour prices vary. The tours run from late June to early October.
Also, park rangers narrate four privately owned boat cruises. Accessibility and prices vary. Boarding is easiest at high tide when the slopes of the boat ramps are less steep. Participants can remain in their wheelchairs. For reservations and information about accessibility, please contact the boats’ operators in advance. The cruise that seems most accessible is described below. For information about the others, please see http://www.nps.gov/acad/planyourvisit/accessiblerangerledprograms.htm.
Dive-In Theater Boat Cruise
Cruise with a ranger among the islands of Frenchman Bay while looking for wildlife. Watch real-time video as a diver scours the ocean floor for marine life to bring aboard for examination. College of the Atlantic Dock, Bar Harbor. For reservations, please call (207)288-3483.
An auto tour may hold appeal for visitors with vision problems. Visitors may purchase cassettes and CDs of the 56-mile audio tour of the Park Loop Road, Cadillac Summit, and Somes Sound at the visitor center.
Ranger-led activities are offered mid-May to mid-October. Visitors should check with the park’s staff regarding the details of specific programs. Accessible programs are listed in the park’s newspaper, the Beaver Log.
Please contact the park at (207)288-8800 (TTY) or (207)288-3338 (voice) for more information about two options that may be available for persons with limited hearing.
- A certified sign language interpreter may be available for a ranger-led program with a two-week advance notice. This service depends on the availability of funds and interpreters.
- To improve hearing and understanding during the park’s programs, a limited number of personal assistive listening devices are available by advance reservation for ranger-led programs.
Allegheny Portage Railroad National Historic Site, Pennsylvania
The site has a golf cart to transport visitors who are handicapped or unable to walk to historic areas of the park. The park offers an interpretive accessibility program to one of its outlying units, Staple Bend Tunnel.
Gettysburg National Military Park, Pennsylvania
Visitors can touch all monuments and cannons. Visitors may wish to hire a licensed battlefield guide at the visitor center. The guide will present a two-hour tour in visitors’ own vehicles. Audio stations are located at various points in the park.
For the above information and more about accessibility at this park and the adjacent Eisenhower National Historic Site, please consult the website http://www.nps.gov/gett/planyourvisit/accessibility.htm. This website is for those with mobility, sight, and hearing impairments and discusses the park and the NHS generally as well as Gettysburg’s buildings and trails.
Independence National Historical Park, Pennsylvania
The guide Accessibility Services: Independence National Historical Park, found online at http://www.nps.gov/inde/upload/accessibility.pdf, provides useful information as of August 2005 for visitors with mobility disabilities, blindness, low vision, deafness, and difficulty hearing. The park’s offerings include ranger-led tours with descriptive language and an ASL-signed reading of the Declaration of Independence on July 8 in Independence Square, where printed copies of the Declaration are available.
John F. Kennedy National Historic Site, Massachusetts
Visitors with visual impairments can ask to tour with a ranger individually so that the ranger can describe specific objects in each room.
Johnstown Flood National Memorial, Pennsylvania
The visitor center has an interpretive, tactile model of the South Fork Dam and lakebed, along with interpretive messages.
Longfellow National Historic Site, Massachusetts
The visitor center is equipped with a wheelchair lift to allow visitors in wheelchairs or with limited mobility to tour the 1 st-floor historic rooms of the house. The site also allows visitors with visual impairments to put on gloves and touch various objects in the house while on a tour. A ranger will guide you to the selected items in the rooms. Mainly, sculptures and chairs are the designated objects.
Roosevelt-Vanderbilt National Historic Sites, New York
The interpretive program at Top Cottage (FDR's Retreat) is wheelchair accessible. Transportation to Top Cottage is by a wheelchair accessible shuttle bus, and the cottage itself was designed with FDR's disability in mind, so it is wheelchair accessible.
A tram service for people with disabilities or difficulty walking is in its third year at the Home of Franklin D. Roosevelt NHS and in its first year at the Eleanor Roosevelt NHS. The tram service at the Home of FDR escorts people from the visitor center to the FDR Library and FDR Home and back to the visitor center. The walking distance between these buildings is about .5 mile, round-trip. This service runs from May through October, seven days a week, 9:30 am to 5 pm, and is free of charge. At the Eleanor Roosevelt (Val-Kill) site, the tram escorts people from the main parking lot to the Home of Eleanor Roosevelt and back to the parking lot. The walking distance between the parking lot and the Home is about .25 mile, round-trip. This service runs from May through October, seven days a week, noon to 5 pm, and is also free of charge.
Signing or other special accommodations may be possible with advance arrangements.
Pacific West Region
Golden Gate National Recreation Area, California
Information for users of wheelchairs about the accessibility of Golden Gate’s attractions and visitor centers can be found at http://www.nps.gov/goga/planyourvisit/accessibility.htm.
Yosemite National Park, California
For detailed information as of May 2006 about accessibility in Yosemite, please consult the park’s Accessibility Guide at http://www.nps.gov/yose/planyourvisit/upload/access.pdf. The guide provides information about the accessibility of campgrounds, lodging, transportation, visitor centers and museums, scenic regions of the park, and activities, such as ranger programs and trail rides. The guide serves visitors with impaired hearing, sight, and mobility and tells them where they can touch granite boulders and sequoia trees, where they can find transferable seating to boulders at wheelchair height, where they can take sit-ski lessons, and more.
In summer and during limited off-season hours, a National Park Service ranger may be available to provide American Sign Language interpretation for ranger programs. Please make individual or group reservations at least two weeks in advance. All requests are filled on a first-come, first-served basis. Inquire at visitor centers or phone (209)372-4726 (TTY). For ASL interpretation on paid tours, call the Yosemite Lodge at the Falls tour desk at (209)372-1240.
Ask at the Yosemite Valley Visitor Center about assisted-listening devices for ranger-led programs in Yosemite Valley.
Southeast Region
Congaree National Park, South Carolina
Congaree National Park features a 2.4 mile wheelchair-accessible boardwalk loop which takes visitors into the one of the tallest deciduous forests in the world. The boardwalk meanders through an ancient floodplain forest with both ground level and elevated views of this tremendously diverse ecosystem. All public facilities are ADA/ABAS compliant, including the visitor center and outdoor picnic shelter. A small number of wheel chairs are available for visitors to borrow.
Congaree NP also offers wheelchair-accessible primitive camping at the main campground. Facilities include an elevated fire ring, picnic table and ADA compliant port-a-johns.
Everglades National Park, Florida
Assistance is provided for access to boat and tram tours.
Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Tennessee, North Carolina
The website http://www.nps.gov/grsm/planyourvisit/accessibility.htm contains information about the accessibility of facilities, activities, and attractions in the park.
Russell Cave National Monument, Alabama
Visitors can take a ranger-led tour of the cave shelter area, scene of an archeological site. The trip to the cave shelter is approximately 300 yards long and wheelchair accessible.
