Homer. The writings of Sun Tzu, a 6th-century Chinese military strategist. Midnight walks through Rome after a night at the opera. These are hints of who Andrew "Andy" Palmer was at just 18, an age of transition in life, a point where youth transforms to adult and begins to chart a path through life.

It would appear from reading the investigative report into the death of an 18-year-old Olympic National Park firefighter could have been prevented on a number of fronts. What lessons did the National Park Service and U.S. Forest Service take from this incident?

Fighting forest fires is one of the most dangerous occupations to partake in. And yet, many of those who fight these blazes are energized by the danger they encounter. You might say they get an adrenalin high battling the flames. And some firefighters die, more often than not because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time. That appears to have been the case when a young firefighter from Olympic National Park died on the fire lines in 2008.

What should we think of a congressman on a national parks subcommittee who endorses a resolution “recognizing that country music has made a tremendous contribution to American life and culture,” and yet opposes legislation that would create hundreds of thousands of acres of official wilderness across the National Park System?

For the past four years, since Last Child in the Woods hit bookstores, there has been a greatly heightened concern over how society connects with nature. Across the United States there has been hew and cry from many corners that society is losing not just its comfort in the outdoors, but also its concern for it. A new study indicates that while there should be reason for concern, perhaps the solution is as simple as a walk in the woods.

Jon Jarvis is swapping emergency sirens outside his West Coast office for emergency sirens outside the Interior Department building in downtown Washington, D.C. And no doubt he'll be picking up the sounds of quite a few figurative sirens from a National Park System struggling with wildlife issues, climate change, morale woes, and competing user demands.

In his first novel, Gloryland, Yosemite National Park Ranger Shelton Johnson comes full circle.

Perched on a rise in the middle of one of the world’s driest and hottest deserts sits what is surely a mirage. At least, it must seem that to first-time Death Valley visitors who are unfamiliar with elegant Furnace Creek Inn. The inn, an AAA Four-Diamond resort, endures and continues to welcome visitors with luxurious accommodations in what can only be described as an unusual setting where summer temperatures average over 100 degrees and frequently soar above 120 degrees.

National parks represent a spectacular legacy handed down to today’s generations, but it is one that also carries a hefty responsibility of stewardship. That becomes quickly obvious in Ken Burns’ The National Parks: America’s Best Idea. This notion of responsible stewardship is not new at all. In many ways it’s trite.

There long have been pockets of disgust over federal land ownership in the West, and perhaps nowhere are those sentiments stronger than in Utah, where roughly two-thirds of the landscape is federally managed. While the "Sagebrush Rebellion" mightily reared its head some three decades ago, its waning vestiges are on trial this week over whether a creek bed constitutes a road in Canyonlands National Park.

Slipping from the top of the arch into the abyss below was a difficult move that rattled my psyche. Even though the sandstone band I was perched on was not much more than 4 feet wide, it was stable. Putting my faith into the rope cinched to my climbing harness and dropping into the 100-foot void went completely against my desire for self-preservation.

What would you think of a utility building a lengthy power-line transmission corridor through Everglades National Park on land that's highly valuable for restoring the "River of Grass"? And what would you think if such a project set a precedent that could jeopardize other National Park System lands across the nation?

The National Park Service's National Leadership Council met in Ohio last week. The meeting of the agency's top management was supposed to be the first under the direction of Jon Jarvis as Park Service director. Political gamesmanship, and apparently a dose of bureaucracy, unfortunately left Mr. Jarvis wearing his Pacific West Region director's hat.

Even experienced travelers often are surprised to learn that some national park lodges still offer rooms without a private bathroom. In fact, in making a reservation at one of the lodges you might discover there is no choice other than a room that requires use of a community bathroom. While European visitors are not surprised and might even expect rooms without a private bathroom, many U.S. travelers don’t look kindly on the need to use a bathroom that is just down the hallway.

What do you expect from the National Park System? How would you like to see the National Park Service manage the 391 parks? Those are at the same time simple and complex questions. Perhaps the obvious answer is that we want parks managed for people to enjoy. But from there the obvious quickly fades away. Do we want them managed for preservation, for the betterment of species that inhabit the parks, for their landscapes to persist immemorially?

What are we to think when a U.S. senator brands Jon Jarvis, a highly respected regional director of the National Park Service, as representing "the extreme policies of the Obama administration"?

There's a growing problem with national park visitation. In short, too many people are returning to the parks, creating problems for staffing and people management.

Are national parks no longer for the people? Have environmental groups succeeded in legally creating roadblocks to prevent their enjoyment? An Ohio man believes so. But what do you think?

What do Russian bishops, totem poles and rain forests have in common? They're all part of the story at a park in southeastern Alaska that shares its name with a terrific small town, and Sitka National Historical Park provides a fine combination of history and natural history in a setting that's hard to beat.

A U.S. senator, unhappy with progress Theodore Roosevelt National Park officials are making on reducing the park's elk herd, is trying to legislate a hunt in the park to get the job done.

Are many months as fickle as April? Bogged down in gooey mud that once had been the campground at Deer Lodge in Dinosaur National Monument while grilling brauts over an open fire in the rain didn't seem to portend a good river trip. At least it wasn't snowing. No, that would come the next night.

Nestled peacefully in Yosemite’s Tuolumne Meadows, at roughly 8,600 feet above sea-level, sits Parsons Memorial Lodge, a modest fieldstone structure built in 1915 to celebrate the life and good works of Edward Taylor Parsons. It’s surrounded by some of the most recognized topographical icons in the Sierra Nevada, such as Cathedral Peak, Unicorn Crest, Mountains Dana and Gibbs.

Each year there are thousands of search-and-rescue incidents logged across the National Park System. They typically involve missing hikers, visitors who get injured in falls, boating accidents, or climbing accidents. Far and away the bulk of the incidents quickly are resolved, usually in less than 24 hours.

In this summer of economic discontent, businesses that operate lodgings in the National Park System are coming up with their own strategies for luring visitors.

A spate of fatalities in the national parks this spring sends a sobering message: parks can be dangerous places. But they don't have to be if you remember some simple rules when visiting the parks.

How comfortable have we become with national park settings? With the big sweep of granite that frames the Yosemite Valley, with Old Faithful's not-quite-so-faithful demonstrations of steam and hot water, with the fall's colorful deciduous forests of Great Smoky and Shenandoah?

A massive influx of dollars is heading towards the National Park System, part due to the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, some proposed within the Obama administration's Fiscal 2010 budget proposal. It certainly is a change from the past eight years.

Major changes are in the wind—literally and figuratively—concerning leasing of sites for offshore energy production. How might parks be affected by the current national plan being developed for offshore energy?

If you subconsciously want to become a search-and-rescue statistic in the National Park System, your best chance would be in either Grand Canyon National Park, Gateway National Recreation Area, or Yosemite National Park.

Different administrations in Washington have different sets of priorities. While the Bush administration talked about helping restore the massive Everglades ecosystem, the Obama administration is sending signals it will work harder to push the project forward.