The majority of Americans (and much of the rest of the world’s population)
now live under impoverished night skies. Artificial light pollution has
degraded the after-hours celestial show, such that more than two-thirds of
U.S. residents can’t see the Milky Way from where they live.
Enjoying the ancient celestial spectacle—thousands of winking stars, blazing
planets, the mysterious glow of zodiacal light, the fiery streaks of meteor
showers, and other heavenly phenomena—at its pristine (or nearly so) finest
is one of the many appeals of getting out into rural countryside or all-out
wilderness.
And there’s increasing attention paid to the preciousness of such deeply
dark night skies. The Arizona-based International Dark-Sky Association (IDA)
has designated nearly 200 Dark Sky Places around the world, including
numerous International Dark Sky Parks, Reserves, and Sanctuaries in the U.S.
Featuring not only naturally brilliant night skies but also opportunities
for astronomical interpretation and concerted efforts to keep light
pollution at bay, these sites definitely rank among the best places for
stargazing anywhere.
The following examples—most of which have some kind of formal IDA
designation—all feature superb clear night skies, glorious enough that you
can appreciate them with nothing more than naked eyes. (Not to say a set of
binoculars or a telescope wouldn’t be a valuable accessory to have along.)
And not only that, but the earthbound scenery below those star-filled
heavens happens to be pretty darn amazing as well. Studying constellations,
eyeballing shooting stars, and drinking in the pearly glories of the Milky
Way are that much more awesome when you’re situated amid wild mountains,
contorted canyonlands, or vast, silent forests.
Best Stargazing Opportunities
We’ll run through these astronomically awesome destinations in no particular
order aside from a rough geographic tour starting in the American Southwest
and proceeding northwest, east, and then south.
(1) Big Bend Area (Texas)
Chihuahuan Desert wilderness stretching from arid grasslands and huge Rio
Grande canyons up to the craggy tops of the Chisos Mountains makes Big Bend
and its surroundings one of the most extraordinary (if lightly visited)
national parks in the U.S. This is also one of the best stargazing spots in
the country, given the distance from major cities and the dry, clear air.
Studies suggest Big Bend National Park has the darkest night skies of any
national park in the Lower 48. The area includes not only the roughly
800,000-acre national park itself and the adjoining Big Bend Ranch State
Park (311,000 acres)—both International Dark Sky Parks—but also the large
Black Gap Wildlife Management Area (an International Dark Sky Sanctuary) and
extensive acreage of primitive rangeland.
(2) Death Valley National Park (California)
Known for being one of Earth’s hottest and driest realms, Death Valley in
the Mojave Desert offers deep, dark, and star-strung skies not all that far
away from the big metropolises of Southern California. The big empty of much
of the park and its sparsely settled surrounds—and the only minimal effect
of Las Vegas’s distant, 24-hour glow—gives Death Valley International Dark
Sky Park classification and the IDA’s highest, “Gold Tier” night-sky
designation. Good stargazing vantages in Death Valley National Park—at 3.4
million acres, the biggest national park in the conterminous U.S.—include
Ubehebe Crater, the Mesquite Flat Sand Dunes, and Badwater Basin, which also
happens to be the lowest spot in North America.
(3) Natural Bridges National Monument (Utah)
Set on the Colorado Plateau amid the wild, glorious rock-scapes of
southeastern Utah, Natural Bridges National Monument has the distinction of
being the first International Dark-Sky Park designated by the IDA (in 2007).
Home to some of the darkest skies of any Lower 48 National Park Service
unit, Natural Bridges combines the dazzlement of star multitudes and the
gleaming Milky Way with some pretty awesome terra
firme foreground in the
form of three huge natural bridges: Sipapu, Owachomo, and Kachina.
(4) Great Basin National Park (Nevada)
Among the least-visited national parks in the country, Great Basin National
Park protects a signature showcase of basin-and-range terrain, Nevada’s
loftiest mountain (13,063-foot Wheeler Peak) and only glacier, and fine
groves of the world’s longest-lived tree, the Great Basin bristlecone pine.
It also offers first-class stargazing, given it lies within some of the most
sparsely populated countryside in America and boasts dry air, minimal
skyglow, and high elevation. An International Dark Sky Park with Gold Tier
cred and an annual Astronomy Festival, Great Basin gives you the opportunity
to see ancient, wizened bristlecones against blazing night-skyscapes.
(5) Central Idaho Dark Sky Reserve (Idaho)
The first International Dark Sky Reserve established in the U.S. occupies
nearly 1,500 square miles of Central Idaho: a Rocky Mountain wildland with
some of the biggest and most rugged backcountry in the nation—and definitely
another of the best places to stargaze in the U.S. The gnarled horns, rock
walls, and alpine lakes of the Sawtooth, Boulder, White Cloud, Smoky, and
Pioneer ranges form a gloriously scenic horizon line below magnificently
dark, Gold Tier-level starscapes in the Central Idaho Dark Sky Reserve, much
of it within the famous Sawtooth National Recreation Area and encompassing
three federal wilderness areas.
(6) Grand Canyon Area (Arizona)
The enormous chasm of the Grand Canyon of the Colorado River isn’t only one
of the planet’s most impressive landforms: It’s also a reservoir of deep
wilderness and superb night skies. This titanic cleft and its tributary
gulches don’t exactly encourage development and are stubbornly remote, and
the high, arid setting on the edge of the Colorado Plateau makes for dry,
clear conditions ideal for (unbelievably scenic) skywatching.
A project undertaken by the National Park Service and the Grand Canyon
Association to modify artificial lighting within Grand Canyon National
Park—one of the country’s most-visited—to IDA standards led to full
International Dark Sky Park status in 2019. And the adjoining expanse of the
Grand Canyon-Parashant National Monument, completely devoid of paved roads,
forms another International Dark Sky Park jointly managed by the Park
Service and the Bureau of Land Management.
(7) Denali National Park & Preserve (Alaska)
The huge and lightly settled spaces of Alaska have some of the lowest levels
of human light pollution anywhere. One of the best places to go stargazing
in the Last Frontier is Denali National Park & Preserve, though you’ll want
to avoid the “midnight Sun” of summer. From fall through early spring,
Denali offers exceptional looks at stars, planets, and other celestial
features—and also excellent chances to see the dancing, pulsating,
multicolored glow of the Northern Lights (aka aurora borealis) when the
requisite solar activity is cranking away.
(8) The Big Island (Hawaii)
Tallest of the overlapping shield volcanoes composing the island of
Hawaii—and, measured from its below-sea-level base to the summit, the
world’s loftiest mountain—13,803-foot Mauna Kea is auspiciously set up for
exceptional astronomical viewing: a huge mountain rising high out of the
middle of the Pacific, far from major cities, subject to very low turbulence
and humidity. The Big Island’s strict light ordinances cut down all the more
on interfering skyglow. The Mauna Kea Observatories at the summit include
more than a dozen of some of the biggest and most powerful telescopes in the
world. But these are controversial features, given the sacred significance
of the mountaintop to Native Hawaiians. Visitors demonstrating respect for
the cultural importance of the area might consider stargazing tours on the
flanks of Mauna Kea offered by reputable local companies.
(9) The Boundary Waters (Minnesota)
In 2020, the IDA recognized the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness of far
northeastern Minnesota as the newest—and, at more than a million acres
largest—of the world’s International Dark Sky Sanctuaries. This spectacular
and much-loved embodiment of the great “North Woods” includes a Canadian
Shield mosaic of rugged rocky forests and innumerable lakes and waterways.
Combining a week or two’s worth of paddling in the loon- and wolf-soundtracked
Boundary Waters backcountry with superlative stargazing sounds pretty
“heavenly,” if you’ll pardon the pun.
(10) Katahdin Woods & Waters National Monument (Maine)
Situated east of Baxter State Park—home to the mighty Katahdin, one of the
grandest peaks in the Northeast and the northern terminus of the Appalachian
Trail—Katahdin Woods & Waters National Monument covers nearly 90,000 acres
free of electric lights. Like the Boundary Waters, this lake-strung
landscape, drained by the East Branch of the Penobscot River, was classified
as an International Dark Sky Sanctuary in 2020. Watching the wheel of stars
and planets over the majestic hump of Katahdin to the west makes for some
magical skywatching, to say the least.
(11) Cherry Springs State Park (Pennsylvania)
Few places in the eastern U.S. offer the kind of prime stargazing conditions
and well-established public-astronomy tradition as Cherry Springs State
Park, a farflung parcel on the Allegheny Plateau. Situated above 2,000 feet
in elevation and ensconced in the mostly unimproved Susquehannock State
Forest, this was the first International Dark Sky Park to be declared in the
northeastern U.S. Cherry Springs State Park’s Overnight Astronomy
Observation Field and Night Sky Public Viewing Area offer outstanding
vantages little affected by light pollution, and draw hundreds for public
star parties.
(12) Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge (Georgia/Florida)
At 402,000 acres, the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge protects the
majority of one of North America’s biggest blackwater ecosystems: the
legendary Okefenokee Swamp, a complex of bald-cypress, tupelo, and other
forested swampland as well as wet prairies, marshes, lakes, and other
freshwater zones in the Georgia-Florida borderlands. The wild backwaters of
the Okefenokee shimmer under some very dark skies indeed. Set within the
national wildlife refuge, Georgia’s Stephen C. Foster State Park is an
International Dark Sky Park boasting IDA Gold Tier night skies—some of the
darkest in the Southeast—with opportunities for both independent and guided
stargazing.
(13) Kissimmee Prairie Preserve State Park (Florida)
A
remote holding in the historical headwaters country of the Everglades,
54,000-acre Kissimmee Prairie Preserve State Park not only showcases the
largest remaining expanses of dry prairie in the Sunshine State, but also
some of its darkest skies. This International Dark Sky Park maintains a
dedicated astronomy camping area (cheekily called the “red-light district”),
and its wide-open spaces and flat terrain provide an ideal stargazing stage.
In winter, you’ve got the opportunity—absent in much of the U.S.—of getting
a good view of Canopus, the
second-brightest star in the sky, which forms a spectacular straight-line
twosome with the very brightest, Sirius, well above.
Thanks to
Mountain
House Blogs for the above information.
