Drivers should be able to expect smooth rides along the Kolob Canyons Road in Zion National Park this winter, as repairs will soon start to rebuild a portion of the road damaged by a landslide earlier in the year.

The National Park Service can't successfully manage its multi-billion-dollar maintenance backlog "due to inaccurate and unreliable data" that has made it impossible to accurately state the cost of the backlog, according to the Interior Department's Inspector General, though the agency strongly disagrees.

Nearly two years after Chuck Sams took over as director of the National Park Service with a determination to improve employee morale, workforce morale continues to fall, employee flight from the agency is growing, and the agency's directorate "is failing to address issues of low morale and workplace harassment," according to Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility.

Satellite remote sensing data from numerous orbiting spacecraft have long been instrumental in studying and monitoring Yellowstone—especially the thermal areas and geyser basins that make Yellowstone National Park famous.