ArcaMax

The kids are climbing up a 32-foot-tall ladder, squeezing through a tunnel and checking out centuries-old toeholds carved into the sandstone.

We're at Mesa Verde National Park in southwest Colorado, a treasure trove of nearly 5,000 known archeological sites, including 600 cliff dwellings where the Ancestral Pueblo people lived for some 700 years, until the 12th and 13th centuries. "This is a different kind of national park," a park ranger explains. "Many national parks preserve national resources. Here we're preserving cultural resources."

The cliff dwellings were discovered by local ranchers in the late 1800s, and Mesa Verde National Park was created in 1906, and now draws some 600,000 visitors a year, but consider that the top visited parks draw many millions more. For example, The Great Smoky Mountains National Park welcomed more than 11 million visitors last year, the Grand Canyon nearly 6 million, Yosemite more than 5 million and Rocky Mountain National Park more than 4.5 million.

The National Park Service and the National Park Foundation are hoping you will #FindYourPark -- or at least start thinking about what park you next want to visit, including the less visited ones -- during National Park Week, which runs April 21 through April 29. (All parks are offering free admission on April 21.) Perhaps you can visit a park during a spring weekend.

Becoming a Junior Ranger is a terrific way to enhance a child's experience and National Junior Ranger Day is the first day of National Park Week (April 21) with special activities at national parks and historic sites around the country.

At Gettysburg National Military Park in Pennsylvania, for example, special programs throughout the day include Junior Ranger activity booklets and "Hands on History" carts at the Gettysburg National Military Park Museum and Visitor Center.

Shenandoah National Park will have a range of special activities -- and special Junior Ranger badges -- from bird-watching, joining fire rangers working a fire hose, the chance to be citizen scientists and learning the important role that owls play in our ecosystem.

The new Passport to Your National Parks® Junior Ranger Edition will also be released during National Park Week, complete with interactive content and the chance for kids to collect park stamps, getting them "canceled" at each park they visit. I love that kids can make their books memorable souvenirs with a free starter kit of park-themed collectible stickers.

I'm not suggesting skipping the most iconic and famous parks -- I've visited every one (more than once with kids of various ages) and even did a "Kid's Guide to Great Smoky Mountains National Park," I've also chatted up kids at other parks for my Kid’s Guide series. (The newest book, the "Kid's Guide to Maine," out in April, offer's a kid's take on popular Acadia National Park.)

That said, crowds, especially during peak times, can be a frustrating experience for families as visitors clog up roads in Yellowstone watching wildlife and, as I discovered last summer, searching unsuccessfully for a parking place at Rocky Mountain National Park trailheads. (There are shuttles from town, but you could eat up a lot of your hiking time getting back and forth.)

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