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Yosemite National Park's meadows, trails and wildlife are better off thanks to a $5.8 million contribution by the nonprofit Yosemite Fund. Saturday a check was presented to Acting Park Superintendent Dave Uberuaga at the Fund's Donor Day event in Wawona. Donors have paid for 56 projects so far this year to improve the Park. The Fund's signature project this year was the $800,000 rehabilitation of the Half Dome Overlook which improved vehicle and pedestrian access, educational signage and viewing terraces. In addition the project also is protecting a natural habitat.

The planning agency for the federal government has approved a revised perimeter security plan for the Martin Luther King, Jr. National Memorial to be built in West Potomac Park. In September 2008 the National Capital Planning Commission approved preliminary and final site and building plans for the memorial but rejected proposed security bollards — short vertical posts — for the memorial’s two entrances.

The hills will be alive with the sound of road graders and asphalt trucks next spring and summer in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. The country's most-visited national park is planning more than $44 million in major improvements to 56 miles of park roads, a campground and a popular trailhead parking area. The repaving projects include the road to the Smokies' highest peak at 6,643-foot Clingmans Dome and the meandering 11-mile loop around scenic Cades Cove.

The National Park Service wants to poison trout in some high-country lakes and streams to save a native species of frog. But some outdoor and environmental groups are worried. The trout were planted years ago by wildlife agencies in the Sequoia and Kings Canyon national parks. They eat mountain yellow-legged frogs, contributing to a 90% decline in the species throughout the Sierra.A preliminary project to eradicate trout from 11 lakes in the two parks since 2001 has yielded dramatic results: Yellow-legged frogs have made spectacular rebounds at these lakes.

Planes and helicopters will fly over Rocky Mountain National Park over the next five months to estimate the number of elk in a herd that park officials want to cull. A plane and helicopter will fly at different altitudes to enhance the monitoring. The National Park Service and the U.S. Geological Survey are working together on the study. Park officials have a 20-year plan that includes using sharpshooters to cull the herd. They want to thin the herd because overgrazing by elk has nearly wiped out aspens and willows — prime habitat for beavers and birds.

After a day of drizzle, the morning sun felt good as it warmed the gray pebble beach where I sat watching three black bears amble in their never-ending search for morsels. The bears were roaming on the other side of a fast-flowing inlet that lets the tidewaters in and out of a lagoon at the base of Pedersen Glacier, a tongue of blue-tinged ice that curves down between the jagged peaks of the Kenai Mountains.

Wolf 527 was a survivor. She lived through a rival pack's crippling 12-day siege of her den. When another pair of wolves laid down stakes in her territory, she killed the mother and picked off the pups while the invader's mate howled nearby in frustration and fury.

The National Park Service announced that it will permanently close beach driving within its boundaries beginning Jan. 1, 2010. The area includes more than 70 acres north of the Matanzas Inlet. The closure will shut driving down from the southernmost Crescent Beach access ramp - Matanzas - completely around the island's south end. This area is among the most popular fishing spots for St. Johns County anglers who chase redfish, trout, drum, Spanish mackerel, tarpon, whiting, pompano and other species there. It is also an area popular for cast-netting mullet.

Concerned about the peace and quiet of this scenic venue being disturbed by low-flying aircraft, park officials are working on an air tour management plan that would regulate the ability of planes and helicopters to operate above and near the park. John Kelly, park planner for Acadia, said Friday that the park is trying to work with the Federal Aviation Administration to establish rules for how planes and helicopters will be allowed to enter the park’s airspace.

Jerry Disterhaft thinks historians have shortchanged the 1673 exploration by Father Marquette and Louis Joliet of the Fox River Valley on their way across Wisconsin. The 60-year-old Princeton-area man, whose grandfather was a fur trapper years ago on the Upper Fox River where he lives, hopes that soon will change

With the general rifle season opening on Sunday for big game across Montana, state and federal agencies are urging hunters to be bear aware. Yellowstone National Park, the Forest Service and Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks each issued the same statement urging people to be cautious during this time of year, when black and grizzly bears are actively feeding before denning for the winter.

Wallace Stegner, the late historian known as the dean of writers on the American West, once said that our national parks are “the best idea we ever had. Absolutely American, absolutely democratic. They reflect us at our best rather than our worst.”

The National Park Service has chosen a vision for reshaping the Gateway Arch grounds that could include closing part of Memorial Drive to traffic, expanding the underground museum and taking in extra land on both sides of the Mississippi River.In its release today of a 298-page "general management plan," the Park Service announces its direction for future development of the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial, the 91-acre riverfront park that includes the Arch and the

The haunted hike happens next Friday from 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. in Fayette County. The Thurmond-Minden Trail in the New River Gorge National River in Fayette County winds through abandoned mining communities and some of the most picturesque scenery in southern West Virginia. National Park Service rangers will lead a haunted hike along the trail on Oct. 30. Rangers will share tales of the areas mining and railroad history, as well as legends about odd happenings in the gorge.

Cliff Hansen is known throughout Wyoming for his achievements as governor and U.S. senator. But recently, Hansen was in the national spotlight when he was featured in Ken Burns' popular PBS documentary series on America's national parks for his opposition to - and, later, his support of - the expansion of Grand Teton National Park.