The long wait is nearly over. Beginning next year, people with the guts to do it will be able to walk across the New River Gorge on a 30 inch-wide, 3,030 foot-long maintenance catwalk beneath the canyon’s world-famous bridge.

New River Gorge National River has a lot more than whitewater rafting and views of one of America’s most spectacular bridges. This West Virginia gem also offers auto touring, historic sites, primitive camping, picnicking, hiking, mountain biking, fishing, rock climbing, and more.

Sure, the most iconic river in all the land is the Colorado that flows through Grand Canyon National Park. But that doesn't mean you can't find quality river trips elsewhere in the National Park System.

Rangers at Glen Canyon National Recreation Area were just the latest in the National Park System to resort to the use of a Taser to resolve a potentially combative situation.

This week’s quiz deals with rivers flowing within or through the national parks. Answers are at the end. If we catch you peeking, we’ll make you write “Tributaries joining main streams at right angles is a signature feature of trellis drainage” 100 times on the whiteboard.

The 29th annual Bridge Day Festival that was held October 18 on New River Gorge Bridge attracted 155,000 people, including 383 BASE-jumpers. During the course of the day the jumpers collected 1,062 jumps, two fractures, and one impromptu trip (sans raft) through class IV whitewater. Will jumpers get more access to the bridge in the future?

In the predawn darkness of September 9, a 25-year old Ohio man leaped to his death from the New River Gorge Bridge at New River Gorge National River. In his car, investigators found a Mapquest map with directions from his home to the bridge. Like many before him, this victim had carefully planned to end his life at an architectural icon far from his home.

Congress is likely to authorize a national parks quarter dollar coin series. Emulating the popular 50 States Quarter® Program, the proposed series would issue five new park quarters per year beginning in 2010. Each state, territory, and the District of Columbia would be represented. Even Delaware.

Despite their curious name, “hellbenders” are not demons of the night but rather amphibious environmental monitors of Southeastern creeks and streams. Known to some old-timers as “walking catfish,” these super-sized salamanders gained the “hellbender” moniker for their freakish size and dark, moody color.

Annually, on the third weekend of October, thousands of spectators watch over the course of the day as hundreds of BASE jumpers leap from the top of New River Gorge Bridge with the hope their parachutes take them safely to the river's shore, 876 feet below.