Kings Canyon National Park

Searchers looking for three missing backpackers in Kings Canyon National Park spotted a trio of men matching the missing hikers' description perched on a ledge above Roaring River Falls around noon Thursday. Due to their location, rangers were working on a technical rescue to get the three off the ledge.

A search is under way in the high country of Kings Canyon National Park for three young men who failed to return Monday from a planned 65-mile trek.

Not too long ago fisheries experts in the High Sierra realized that if they removed non-native trout from high-elevation lakes, they could boost fragile populations of a small frog that once was widespread throughout the range. Now Sequoia and Kings Canyon national parks want to remove trout from slightly more than 80 of the parks' 560 lakes and ponds to give the mountain yellow-legged frog a chance for survival.

One of the last act's Jon Jarvis took as director of the National Park Service's Pacific West office before moving to Washington as the agency's director was to approve the erection of a cellphone tower near Grant Grove in Kings Canyon National Park.

A 52-year-old hiker has been reported as missing in Kings Canyon National Park after heading out to summit Split Mountain.

The mountain yellow-legged frog was once one of the most abundant vertebrates in the Sierra Nevada. The flash of its yellow legs could be seen and the echo of its croaking could be heard across the Sierra’s alpine lakes, even those nestled at 12,000 feet that contain watery habitats typically too cold for amphibians. Unfortunately, that empire began to crumble as long ago as 1850 when non-native trout were first transplanted into some of those lakes to increase fishing opportunities.

A two-week operation involving various law enforcement agencies has wiped out 71 marijuana growing operations in Kings Canyon National Park and led to the arrests of more than 80 individuals tied to Mexican drug cartels.

With the summer season well under way, there's lots going on in the National Park System. At Kings Canyon National Park there are two family camping weekends coming up, at Mount Rainer National Park the Stevens Pass Road is about to reopen, and at Glacier National Park there are some great science programs for visitors to enjoy.

It's a rare occasion when a lodge is built somewhere in the National Park System. As a result, even though the John Muir Lodge in Kings Canyon National Park was built in the late 1990s, it's still considered one of the newer lodges in the park system. That said, don't expect a four-star accommodation.

Fire restrictions were put into place Friday in Kings Canyon and Sequoia National Parks as officials try to cope with extremely dry conditions across the two parks.

Sequoia National Park long has been known for its tall trees and High Sierra backcountry. But more and more of what's under the park's surface is being discovered, necessitating an updating of the park's Cave Management Plan.

Can you hear me now? Verizon Wireless wants an affirmative answer to that question if you're in Sequoia and Kings Canyon national parks, and says it needs a cellphone tower possibly 80 feet tall in Kings Canyon to get it.

It might be cold and snowy in some parts of the country, but it's comparatively dry and mild in the Sierra Nevada and the Rocky Mountains. As a result, if you're heading into a national park in the West this long weekend don't expect premium snow conditions.

A massive lands bill introduced today by Senator Jeff Bingaman would, if passed by Congress and signed by the president, designate hundreds of thousands of acres of official wilderness across the National Park System.

Part of a fire burning in the backcountry of Kings Canyon National Park is being "managed" for its benefits to the landscape. Unlike the Telegraph Fire outside Yosemite National Park, the "Tehipite Fire" is not threatening structures or human developments.

In light of the wildfires sweeping California, it was only a matter of time before fire restrictions started popping up in national parks in the state. So it should be no surprise that officials at Sequoia and Kings Canyon national parks are implementing some restrictions.

We love our cars, we love our parks, and we love to drive our cars in the parks. Well, at least when the traffic isn’t too bad, and we really don’t mind just going along for the ride. The windshield touring season is nearly here, so it’s time to start thinking about park trips. All of the national parkways are recommended. Here are a dozen other traverses, loops, and shuttles that belong on your short list.

If you're heading into the backcountry of either Sequoia or Kings Canyon national parks this year, you'll need to brush up a bit on changes to the parks' backcountry regulations.

Kings Canyon National Park is an alpine wonderland, set amongst the rugged lands of the Sierra Mountains in California, just north of Sequoia National Park and to the southeast of Yosemite National Park. The park, administered with Sequoia, is one of America’s oldest. While it still protects the ancient sequoia trees of the Grant Grove that were the park’s original focal point, it is rapidly becoming known as one of America’s premier backcountry destinations.

How do you like your fish seasoned? A little mercury, perhaps some DDT? That's what you might get if you eat fish caught in national parks in the American West.

Imagine taking the time to go into your backyard, or the nearby woods, or even a pond close to your home, to catalog all the life you found in it. Not just the deer or snakes or fish, but the birds and insects, reptiles, plants and fungi and everything else biological or botanic. Imagine how fascinating that would be. At Great Smoky Mountains National Park they've been working on just that, and what they've found has been incredible.

I was inspired recently to write an article about the problems drugs bring to the parks when I visited Olympic National Park earlier this summer. As recreational visitors to the national parks, we may not be aware of the battle behind the scenes to keep drugs out of the parks. I was told a story by a long-time law enforcement ranger that surprised me, and made me realize the burden to the resource they represent.

As a follow-up to my post a month ago about Yosemite campsites winding up on Ebay, I've discovered that the folks in Sequoia don't allow the sale or transfer of backcountry permits.