Spring-break crowds, drought conditions, and a poor water source recently created quite the problem at Big Bend National Park, a problem that required the Big Bend Conservancy to bail out the National Park Service.

Grand Canyon National Park camping fees will take a substantial increase on May 1, when standard frontcountry sites at Desert View, North Rim and Mather campgrounds will jump from $18 a night to $30 a night.

Yellowstone National Park is famous for its volcanic landscapes, erupting geysers, colorful hot springs, and abundant and diverse wildlife. The park is also unique because of the many waterfalls along its rivers and creeks that mostly form in deep gorges, where rocks with differences in hardness meet or at the edges of thick rhyolite lava flows.

Removed National Park Service webpages that featured more than 100 queer and transgender stories have been revived on a website created by Resistance Rangers, a group pushing back against the Trump administration's efforts to erase history.

The National Park Service describes Kenai Fjords National Park in Alaska as the location “where mountains, ice and ocean meet.” This description provides you with a good idea of what you can see at this national park if you choose to visit. And you ought to, since it’s just two hours’ drive away from Anchorage, a city easily reached by commercial flights from the Lower 48.

What bottomline impact will national parks and other public lands suffer from Trump administration policies? That's the burning question of the year for those who turn to public lands for recreation and rejuvenation.

If you head out into the National Park System, you might find visitor impacts, both related and unrelated to the Trump administration's efforts to downsize the National Park Service. For instance:

The Alcove House at Bandelier National Monument in New Mexico will be temporarily closed starting Monday so crews can remove flood debris from that area.

Interested in lending a hand to the National Park Service at Olympic National Park in Washington? On April 19 volunteers are invited to visit the park's beaches to clean up marine debris as part of the Washington Coastal Cleanup effort. This year's cleanup will focus on beaches near Mora and Kalaloch.

While repairs to storm-damaged sections of the Blue Ridge Parkway are underway, it will "take years" to repair some of the damage, according to the National Park Service.

Beginning in mid-April the National Park Service at Acadia National Park in Maine will not accept cash for park entrance fees or other Park Service transactions.

Bears across Wyoming's Teton County are becoming active with the spring transition. Adult male grizzly bears begin emerging from their winter dens in March, while females with young generally emerge between April and early May. March 19 marked the first confirmed grizzly bear sighting of the 2025 season in Grand Teton National Park.

The first time Camilla saw a caterpillar, she mistook the creature for a more fantastical apparition: a dragon wearing sunglasses.

Delicate trilliums, glorious columbines, and flamboyant redbuds are some of the harbingers of spring found across the National Park System. This is a favorite season for birds, bees, and photographers. Wildlife is more easily seen in the spring in many parks, too, making the coming three months idyllic for exploring the parks.

More than 300 elected officials from Colorado to California have signed off on a letter urging Interior Secretary Doug Burgum and members of Congress to protect public lands from being sold off, sullied by energy development or mining, climate-change impacts, and efforts to water down the Antiquities Act.

Sequoia National Park's Crystal Cave, which has been closed since 2021 due to damage related to a wildfire that year and then the hard winter of 2023, will reopen to the public this year.

Wildflower season is about to bloom in Great Smoky Mountains National Park, and the National Park Service wants to remind visitors that there are group size limits at Whiteoak Sink.

What if you only had a day or two, to spend in Yellowstone National Park? Where would you go? What would you photograph? If you decide to travel the park’s 142-mile Grand Loop Road, a figure-eight shaped route through the park interior, you’ll see (and photograph) plenty. Contributing photographer Rebecca Latson gives you an idea of what you might capture with your camera.

Firing federal employees without regard for the importance of their work or the consequence of their loss is not smart - or justified.

How do volcanologists determine the height of eruptive plumes from Yellowstone’s past explosive eruptions? Ironically, you have to dig into the ground to get the answer.