Accessibility in the national parks

The Access Pass first. It is free and lifetime for a U.S. citizen or permanent resident with a permanent disability, it admits the whole vehicle at the gate, and it takes about half off federal campground fees. You document eligibility once. Get it free at any staffed entrance, or online, where a processing fee applies.

That's the easy part.

"Accessible" is a slippery word in park planning because it can mean a paved path to the rim or a dirt track someone once pushed a chair up. A few things hold true almost everywhere. Visitor centers are reliably wheelchair accessible, restrooms included. Scenic drives are the great equalizer, and at some parks they carry the whole show. Trail Ridge Road in Rocky Mountain, Desert View Drive at the Grand Canyon, and the length of Skyline Drive at Shenandoah are the examples. Park shuttles generally run lifts.

Trails are where you have to read carefully. "Paved" and "boardwalk" mean what they say. Yosemite's Lower Falls loop, the boardwalks at Yellowstone's Old Faithful and Mud Volcano, Acadia's Jesup Path: genuinely rollable. "Accessible with assistance" is a different promise, and it usually means grades that will fight you.

Campgrounds: most developed ones hold reservable accessible sites, filterable on recreation.gov before you book.

For anything the trip depends on, call the visitor center. A ranger will tell you the boardwalk's torn up this month, or that the accessible parking at the trailhead is four spots and gone by 8:30. No database has that. The number is in the sidebar of every park page here.

One pattern worth knowing: historic sites and battlefields are often the most fully accessible units in the whole system. Paved, compact, built around auto-tour roads. Fort McHenry, Gettysburg, San Antonio Missions. Some of the best wheels-friendly days in the park system have no famous trailhead anywhere near them.