Cape Hatteras National Seashore

With tours of Cape Hatteras Lighthouse at the national seashore of the same name set to begin for the season April 15, a new guide has arrived to help you better appreciate your visit.

The issue of access on Cape Hatteras National Seashore is among the most contentious in the National Park System.

One-thirteenth of 1 percent of the federal budget gets you funding for the entire National Park System and the agency that oversees it. Yet that miniscule sliver hasn't stopped Congress from eyeing the National Park Service for cuts to help rein-in the federal deficit.

If spring is your favorite time to visit Cape Hatteras National Seashore, then you'll be happy to know that the Oregon Inlet, Frisco, and Ocracoke campgrounds are scheduled to open for business on April 1. Really!

We love our national parks. We love the wildlife they hold, the seashores with their sparkling sands, the forests with their wildlife and hiking trails, the soaring red-rock cliffs and plunging canyons. But please, don't ask us to abide by their regulations.

Organizations that start out small and simple can expect to end up large and complex, but what can be expected of an organization that starts out small and stupid?

The barrier islands of North Carolina may not have seen the same level of action in the Civil War as places like Gettysburg, but the area was the site of several important "firsts" in the War. Do you know what they were?

Three members of North Carolina's congressional delegation have asked Interior Secretary Ken Salazar to find a way to allow increased off-road vehicle access to Cape Hatteras National Seashore.

Anyone who's ever taken on a major home repair project knows this version of Murphy's Law: "It will take longer than you think, and will cost more than you planned." That's unfortunately the situation at Cape Hatteras National Seashore, where restoration of the Bodie Island Lighthouse has hit a serious snag.

A strong majority of businesses along Cape Hatteras National Seashore believe rules that restrict access of off-road vehicles and pedestrians for the benefit of nesting shorebirds and sea turtles will harm their operations.

Cape Lookout National Seashore is a wilderness vestige of North Carolina's barrier islands. Not as developed as its northern sibling, Cape Hatteras National Seashore, it offers a wilder beach vacation, one definitely worth pursuing.

What were the top stories across the National Park System in 2010? There were more than a few, ranging from the tragic loss of three Katmai National Park and Preserve employees to a small-plane crash to the ongoing controversy over whether birds, turtles and off-road vehicles can co-exist at Cape Hatteras National Seashore. Let's take a look back through the year at some of the stories.

This year we posted 16 Traveler's Checklists to help you plan your park visits. Did you miss any? Here's a list with handy links.

While the final paperwork has been signed concerning an off-road management plan at Cape Hatteras National Seashore, the arduous task of formalizing a rule means the seashore will continue to operate next summer under a consent decree.

While the potential exists for the National Park Service's preferred off-road vehicle plan for Cape Hatteras National Seashore to be detrimental to piping plovers, sea turtles, and seabeach amaranth, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service officials believe the plan will be at least minimally helpful to all three in the long-run.

A proposed plan governing off-road vehicle access to Cape Hatteras National Seashore while also offering wildlife protection has drawn initial opposition from the groups that forced the National Park Service to develop the strategy.

Things move a bit slower along the North Carolina coast in winter, which is why the National Park Service's Outer Banks Group is scaling back the hours of its visitor centers just a bit, beginning Monday

The transition from fall to winter is harsher than the ones from spring to summer or summer to fall. The signs practically assault your senses. And yet, the transition can be much too quick.

How do you prefer your national parks? Should they be utilitarian destinations, landscapes that serve all comers, whether they're in search of dazzling vistas or motorized recreation, or Utopian, ideals that should be appreciated for what is found within their borders?

It's hard to believe an object similar in size, shape, and even color to a Ping-Pong ball could threaten a way of life. But for many who call the Outer Banks of North Carolina home, that's how they view sea turtle eggs, as threats to their enjoyment of Cape Hatteras National Seashore and, for some, even their livelihoods.

Two of the most contentious issues in the National Park System is the debate over snowmobiles in Yellowstone National Park and the one over off-road vehicle management at Cape Hatteras National Seashore. Which is more important to you?

Photographs of a female loggerhead turtle that was run over on Cape Hatteras National Seashore back in June told a pretty grim story. Amazingly, though, after seashore biologists placed 92 of her eggs in a nest cavity, six continued their incubation and hatched.

Packing winds of 125 mph, Hurricane Earl continues along a path toward the national parks of North Carolina's Outer Banks region. Parks further north and east along the coast are likely to feel Earl's impacts within a few days.

Efforts to protect sea turtle nests at Cape Hatteras National Seashore have been controversial in some quarters, but the work is paying off. So far this year, a record 151 nests have been recorded, and once the eggs have hatched, the nest is excavated for further study. The public is welcome to watch the process, and it's been a crowd pleaser.

With Hurricane Earl taking aim at the North Carolina coastline -- and points north -- officials at Cape Lookout National Seashore have ordered an evacuation of the seashore, while a bit farther north Cape Hatteras National Seashore officials are closing visitor centers and campgrounds.

Virgin Islands National Park has survived Hurricane Earl with only heavy rains and a few downed trees to report, but park officials aren't ready to take their hurricane shutters down just yet.

Hurricane Earl with its 120 mile-per-hour winds on Monday was ripping through the Caribbean, where a hurricane warning was posted for Virgin Islands National Park on the island of St. John.

In an opinion that goes against off-road vehicle interests along Cape Hatteras in North Carolina, a federal judge has ruled that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service properly designated critical winter habitat for the piping plover, a threatened species of shorebirds.

The National Park Service is soliciting input on proposed alternative transportation strategies developed for Bodie Island at Cape Hatteras National Seashore. A public meeting has been scheduled for August 4. Written comments should be submitted by August 19.

Two men have been apprehended at Cape Hatteras National Seashore after the latest known violation of areas temporarily closed to protect nesting wildlife. The pair has been charged with multiple violations after their dark-of-night joyride.