National Parks Traveler

We're just entering the peak of the summer vacation season, but 2012 has already set some unwelcome records, including destructive wildfires and all-time high temperatures in many states. Will you alter your summer vacation plans based this year's heat and fires? If so, what changes will you make?

A massive landslide, one of the biggest ever seen in North America and which registered on seismographs in Canada and the United States, has covered a more than 5-mile run of the Johns Hopkins Glacier in Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve like chocolate frosting on cake.

From introducing school children to nature and underwriting wildlife research, the Glacier Fund is at work daily on helping the National Park Service meet the needs of Glacier National Park.

Gateway National Recreation Area now has more room for some happy campers, as the Park Service has opened a 7-site campground at Fort Wadsworth on Staten Island.

Climbing is a tricky thing, even for the most experienced. And when you opt to solo a route, well, the odds lengthen, as a Washington man can attest to after needing to be hauled via helicopter off Middle Teton at Grand Teton National Park.

2012 already is going to be interesting election year, what with the presidential election, but in San Francisco the election could proof even more intriguing as voters might have a chance to vote on the future of the Hetch-Hetchy Reservoir in Yosemite National Park.

Chefs at restaurants in and around national parks spend a lot of time designing dishes reflective of their surroundings. So is it any surprise that Lake Quinault Lodge Executive Chef Patrick Norris focused on scallops recently when he was looking for something special?

If you've long wanted to spend a month in a cottage on Cape Cod National Seashore with expansive views of the Atlantic Ocean, your opportunity just might be here if you're free in August or September.

Apparently a local living near Olympic National Park never thought too hard about the saying that in a national park you should "take only pictures and leave only footprints."