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Yosemite, Sequoia, Joshua Tree. They all win the popularity contests with folks around here. There's good reason for that, but the closest traditional National Park to Los Angeles goes without much notice. That's too bad considering the striking beauty found in Channel Islands National Park.

As much as I love the rugged splendor of the Pinnacles National Monument, I had some qualms when I first heard that South Valley Congressman Sam Farr wants to reclassify the wilderness area as a "national park." But after pondering Farr's idea, I believe his name change notion might be just what America needs to preserve its federally-managed parks.If passed, Farr's bill (HR 3444) would put the Pinnacles on the A-list of America's nature-oriented tourist attractions.

Monday’s start of a feral horse roundup in Theodore Roosevelt National Park’s South Unit went smoothly, but some outsiders are concerned with the horse’s heritage.Projected to last through Wednesday, park officials and animal experts will attempt to round up all park horses, totaling about 165 with plans to reduce the herd to about 70 to 75 animals.“We had about half the horses in the park in before lunch time,” said Valerie Naylor, park superintendent. “Our goal is to keep them as calm as possible.”

The Desert Institute at Joshua Tree National Park will have a two-day field class on edible plants of the desert from 9 a.m. to evening Oct. 31 and 9 a.m. to noon Nov. 1 at the Black Rock Visitor Center, 9800 Black Rock Canyon, Yucca Valley.William Pink, a Luiseno-Cupeno native skills teacher, will share his knowledge about the plants historically harvested by the native peoples of the Mojave and Colorado deserts and then show participants how to turn wild edibles into a gourmet meal using traditional cooking techniques.

There is an old saying popular with park rangers and campers –“take only pictures and leave only footprints” when you are enjoying thegreat outdoors. While many subscribe to this philosophy, it isn’t alwaysobvious how to make the right low-impact choices when you’re far from roadsand established campgrounds. The National Park Service’s (NPS) Leave NoTrace video is a great place for campers to learn where to pitch a tent and

America's National Parks are high on our interest list.We travel in the summertime to national parks or visit the parks in the South during the winter.As a travel agent, some great winter destinations I recommend are Grand Teton and Yellowstone national parks. Not only do the snowmobile riders enjoy seeing the parks in the winter, but they are joined by snowshoers and cross country skiers.

At Yellowstone National Park, the clear soda cups and white utensils are not your typical cafe-counter garbage. Made of plant-based plastics, they dissolve magically when heated for more than a few minutes.At Ecco, a popular restaurant in Atlanta, waiters no longer scrape food scraps into the trash bin. Uneaten morsels are dumped into five-gallon pails and taken to a compost heap out back.And at eight of its North American plants, Honda is recycling so diligently that the factories have gotten rid of their trash Dumpsters altogether.

An independent arbitrator has upheld a decision by the National Park Service to end its contract with a failed developer who proposed a massive renovation of nearly three dozen historic buildings on Sandy Hook. The ruling, announced today by U.S. Rep. Frank Pallone (D-6th Dist.), affirms the park service’s cancellation in August of its contract with Sandy Hook Partners which had been pending for eight years while the developer tried to secure financing.

The ripest recipe for trouble in a national park? Young men hiking on a weekend who make a bad decision or two and end up hurt, exhausted or lost. On average, 11 search-and-rescue operations are launched in national parks every day. While expenses average around $900, the price can easily jump into the thousands of dollars, according to a new analysis of search-and-rescue operations over 15 years.

Nineteen elk calves were born this year in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, and 16 survived. Park officials said it's been one of the best years yet for increasing the herd. There are now about 110 elk in the park, divided about evenly among males and females. Additionally, officials said the bulls this year have impressive antlers, which may mean that there is good forage available for the elk.

The season is definitely changing at Yosemite National Park, where the Half Dome cables have been removed for the season, and where snow and ice are causing temporary road closures. The cables, which enable hikers to summit the majestic granite dome, are taken down each fall and replaced in the spring. Hikers are strongly cautioned against attempting to scale Half Dome while the cables are down.

Wildlife officials in Montana will consider changes to the state's inaugural wolf hunt after hunters killed nine of the predators in just three weeks along the border of Yellowstone National Park. More than 1,300 gray wolves were removed from the endangered species list in Idaho and Montana this spring following a costly federal restoration effort. Hunting has been promoted as a way to keep the population of the fast-breeding species in check and reduce wolf attacks on livestock. At least 48 wolves have been killed since Sept. 1 by hunters in the two states.

This just in: Bears (at least, Yosemite National Park's black bears) view your minivan as one big, delicious pic-a-nic basket. A new report in the Journal of Mammalogy has the details of data collected on bear-related vehicle break-ins -- more than 900 of them -- between 2001 and 2007 at Yosemite. Researchers broke the incidents down by vehicle type, comparing the break-in data with available statistics on the types of vehicles that entered the park.

The public will once again be able to view the beauty of Cape Lookout from the top of its historic lighthouse. Funding for repairs to allow the re-opening of the lighthouse was announced Wednesday by U.S. Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar during a teleconference with Sen. Kay Hagan of North Carolina. The news of the funding comes during the ongoing commemoration of the 150th anniversary of the lighthouse.

Paige Baker, superintendent at Badlands National Park, announced he is retiring from the National Park Service at the end of the year. Baker has served at the park for five years. While at the park, he North Dakota-native was instrumental in developing the South Unit General Management Plan, organized a Friends Group for Badlands National Park, promoted and built relationships with the neighbors and partners, and directed the Common Ground Project for high school students, according to a news release from the NPS.