Bandelier National Monument will temporarily close its Tsankawi Unit in mid-March 2023 due to extensive construction work. The unit, located north of White Rock, New Mexico, is expected to reopen in late-October. The final closure date will be posted on the park’s website once the construction schedule is finalized.

In retrospect, three hours doesn’t seem like a particularly impressive amount of time to volunteer to help Hawaiʻi Volcanoes National Park and the 'āina (land). But as I tackled invasive Himalayan ginger with a lobber one February morning while other visitors made a beeline to the current eruption at Kīlauea volcano or hiked to lava tubes, the repetitive manual labor quickly became addictive and I was sorry when Paul Field insisted it was time to stop.

Stepping into Primeval Forest National Park is like entering a time capsule and being transported back to when the Bahamas was covered with tropical forests. Agriculture, the lumber industry and shipbuilding wiped out great tracts of trees, but not these 7.5 acres on New Providence island. “Sprouting from razor-sharp rock and dotted with sinkholes, the forest proved too difficult to traverse and impossible to farm,” interpretive signage explains. “Thus it escaped the ravages of agriculture and development.”

Have you ever stopped to think about the number of National Park System units created around volcanoes and volcanic features?