Permits to drive your rig on the beach at Assateague Island National Seashore in Maryland and Virginia will go on sale January 4.

In a move to halt illegal roadside parking that greatly impacts the park, Great Smoky Mountains National Park crews will be installing barriers -- boulders, fencing, and wooden bollards -- to protect the road shoulders.

The National Park Service is charged with preserving natural resources, a challenging mission at best, but one that can get emotionally charged when the topic of removing nonnative horses and cattle comes up. At Theodore Roosevelt National Park in North Dakota, officials are gathering public comment on what to do with the roughly 200 feral horses and nine cattle that roam that park.

A petition drive seeking to reopen mid-week access to Paradise at Mount Rainier National Park questions whether the National Park Service is going to exacerbate weekend crowding in the park with the mid-week closure, and questions whether park staff took "into account the impact of this closure on the winter recreation community?"