Yellowstone National Park

Dry, windy weather pushed the Arnica fire in Yellowstone National Park to more than 8,000 acres Sunday, with spotting starting small fires within 1 mile of Bridge Bay on the west side of Yellowstone Lake.

A lightning-sparked fire in Yellowstone National Park is now covering an estimated 1,200 acres and is impacting traffic flows in the park.

A backcountry fire ignited by lightning in Yellowstone National Park is up to 250 acres and growing in the direction of the Grand Loop Road, prompting firefighters to take to the air with water-dropping helicopters.

A federal judge has restored Yellowstone ecosystem grizzlies to threatened status under the Endangered Species Act. The upgrade reverses a 2007 F&WS delisting decision that inadequately considered a number of important factors, including the negative impacts of climate change on critical food supplies.

National parks represent a spectacular legacy handed down to today’s generations, but it is one that also carries a hefty responsibility of stewardship. That becomes quickly obvious in Ken Burns’ The National Parks: America’s Best Idea. This notion of responsible stewardship is not new at all. In many ways it’s trite.

A federal judge in Wyoming who in the past has supported higher numbers of snowmobiles in Yellowstone National Park ruled Thursday that he could not overturn the National Park Service's decision to cap daily snowmobile numbers at 318 this coming winter.

Canine distemper, not parvovirus, apparently was behind the high wolf pup mortality rates in Yellowstone National Park in 1999, 2005 and 2008, according to new research.

What role should the National Park Service play in promoting businesses that make a living off national parks? That's a potentially thorny question. On one hand, visitors coming from far off might want such information to help plan their trips. On the other, is the Park Service giving away free advertising and adding an appropriate commercial bent to its websites and press releases?

Nearly 140 years after Yellowstone became the world's first national park, we still don't know enough about it to properly manage all its natural resources. But then, as a dynamic, multi-faceted ecosystem, one affected by many internal and external drivers, is that surprising? Perhaps it should be.

The annual summer census of bison in Yellowstone National Park shows there are roughly 3,300 bison in the park's two bison herds, a number that is up a bit from a year earlier but far below the nearly 5,000 bison counted four summers ago.

One of the oddest sounds you might encounter in a national park at this time of year is the high-pitched squeal of elk. Better known as "bugling," this sound is as magical as that of a wolf howl hanging in the air.

A 30-year-old Wyoming woman has drowned in a remote area of Yellowstone National Park's backcountry, according to park officials.

Following a rising trend of visitation noted in the first half of 2009, Yellowstone National Park attracted a record number of visitors this summer, with nearly 2.3 million tallied during June, July, and August.

The United States Mint has released the list of 56 sites to be featured in the upcoming America the Beautiful Quarters Program. The first five coins in the new series will be released next year. What locations made the list? There are some familiar names and perhaps a surprise or two.

Experiencing our national parks’ grandeur from the saddle of a road bike is a bit like summiting a high peak. The arduous pedal through the park is rewarded with the scenery and equally thrilling descent from the park roads’ high points. Fall is sublime for cycling in national parks, so with the season quickly approaching, now is the time to experience the Mountain West’s greatest national park road cycling routes.

While the National Park System protects wide swathes of officially designated wilderness, there are many, many wilderness-quality acres in the parks that are not so designated, though they are managed as de facto wilderness. President Obama, with hopes Americans would become more familiar with wilderness, has designated September as National Wilderness Month.

If you're flexible enough to take a fall trip to some of the iconic national parks in the Western United States, there are a number of lodges that are reporting late-season availability. Lodges in Yellowstone, Bryce Canyon, Crater Lake, Grand Canyon, and Death Valley national parks all show some rooms available during the months of September and October.

Some of the most-read stories on the Traveler revolve around bears. Folks seem to love to hear about what bruins are up to, or are outraged when they're killed because they've become problem bears. Well, the Yellowstone Park Foundation is mounting a campaign to help the bears in Yellowstone National Park avoid the temptations of human food.

The September-October 2009 issue of Audubon magazine has a Kenn Kaufman article that provides helpful information about birding in twelve national parks.

Quite a few U.S. national parks are listed as World Heritage Sites, and they're often in the news. There's a handy website out there run by the National Park Service's Office of International Affairs that can help you stay abreast of issues involving this sites.

Scientists from across the country have come to Yellowstone National Park this weekend for the park's first-ever BioBlitz. Visitors are invited to visit with researchers on Saturday afternoon, August 29th and find out about what they learned. Those results could be pretty impressive.

The National Park Service's National Leadership Council met in Ohio last week. The meeting of the agency's top management was supposed to be the first under the direction of Jon Jarvis as Park Service director. Political gamesmanship, and apparently a dose of bureaucracy, unfortunately left Mr. Jarvis wearing his Pacific West Region director's hat.

If ever there was an enduring symbol of the wildness of the Rocky Mountains, it would be the wolverine. While wolves and grizzly bears usually come to mind when talk turns to the Rockies’ animals that conjure images of the wild, the diminutive wolverine possesses a legendary reputation for toughness, resilience, and, some would say, cantankerousness.

A newly discovered "hot spot" has led to temporary closure of the Clear Lake Trail in Yellowstone National Park, but elsewhere in the park completed repairs have allowed officials to reopen three other trails.

Smithsonian high-fives the parks and Yahoo! Travel flips the bird.

While the three "entrance-fee-free" weekends in the National Park System are now behind us, the debate over the propriety of park entrance fees no doubt will go forward, if not heighten, in the wake of some impressive visitor numbers logged by some parks. One organization that you won't hear lobbying for a permanent waiving of the fees, though, is the American Recreation Coalition, which was a strong voice for them more than a decade ago and continues that stance today.

Even experienced travelers often are surprised to learn that some national park lodges still offer rooms without a private bathroom. In fact, in making a reservation at one of the lodges you might discover there is no choice other than a room that requires use of a community bathroom. While European visitors are not surprised and might even expect rooms without a private bathroom, many U.S. travelers don’t look kindly on the need to use a bathroom that is just down the hallway.