It's easy to take the status of national parks for granted. We read wonderful beckoning stories about them in magazines and newspapers. And we watch gorgeous travelogue pieces about them on television. But how much do we know about the operational status of the national parks? How much do we know about the health of the natural resources, the condition of historic structures, the state of the workforce that operates and manages the national parks?

Travel extensively through the National Park System, and you’ll quickly come to realize that the park’s restaurants try to reflect the local culinary trends, or at least use local ingredients in crafting their menus. For instance, visit national parks in Alaska and you can pretty much count on salmon in the dinner offerings. Travel through the parks in the Rocky Mountains, and elk (and sometimes bison) will appear on the menus. Explore parks in the southwest, and you can almost predict that cacti will show up in some form.

When warm weather spreads across the National Park System, many parks offer nightly gatherings around the campfire. The tradition of gathering around a flickering fire goes back thousands of years. Fire, after all, was the giver of light in the darkest of night, and seen as offering safety from what might lurk about in the dark.

How did America get hooked on skiing? In 1939, Hannes Schneider moved from Austria to North Conway, New Hampshire, to teach skiing. But before the sport really took off, World War II broke out. After the war, a gritty band of soldiers who fought in the U,S, Army’s 10th Mountain Division, returned home into the mountains they loved.