Sometimes technology isn't all it's cracked up to be. That seems to be the case with the online backcountry reservation system at Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado, where officials are turning to an old-fashioned lottery, sort of, for this summer's precious backcountry camping permits.

Growing crowds year after year are not only making it harder and harder to find parking spots at popular locations in your favorite national park, but solitude along some trails is also more difficult to find, and resources are being impacted. Nowhere in Glacier National Park is this more obvious than along the Going-to-the-Sun Road corridor, where one day soon you might have to reserve parking at Logan Pass or return at another time to hike to Avalanche Lake.

Parks Canada says there won’t be any expropriation of private land for the proposed South Okanagan-Similkameen National Park Reserve in British Columbia, and that “any acquisition of private property will occur on a willing seller-willing buyer basis.”

Spring plowing will begin in Grand Teton National Park on Monday, marking the end of the over-snow access on the 14-mile section of the Teton Park Road between Taggart Lake Trailhead and the Signal Mountain area.