Colorado’s Mesa Verde National Park celebrates its 102nd birthday on June 29. Mesa Verde's 4,000+ archaeological sites document a culture that flourished for centuries before the last generation abruptly and mysteriously abandoned its ancestral home. Did you know there might not have been a Mesa Verde National Park at all if it hadn’t been for Virginia McClurg?

On a clear day, you often can see for miles and miles. But as a report from the National Parks Conservation Association points out, clear days are harder and harder to find in our national parks under the Bush administration's relatively laissez-faire approach to coal-fired power plants.

There are chick flicks, and now even chick national park retreats.

If your schedule is flexible, you might want to take a look at these lodging deals at Yosemite, Olympic, and Mesa Verde national parks.

Time is constantly a threat to Mesa Verde National Park. As it passes, and brings with it erosion and earthquakes, the park's ruins are at risk of collapse. But a new laser technology is providing the park with, in essence, blue prints of the ruins.

The International Mountain Bicycling Association has a friend in the National Park Service's Intermountain regional director, Michael Snyder. In a recent memo to park superintendents in his region, Mr. Snyder says IMBA can provide "some great partnership ... that you may want to take advantage of."