It's good to know that the National Park Service has hired a software company to track data related to search-and-rescue incidents. Let's just hope their work is a little more accurate than their press release.

In a brief, four-paragraph memorandum, National Park Service Director Jon Jarvis has brought to an end a controversial budgeting process that stripped arguably key positions from parks. Dubbed "core ops" for its approach to analyzing a park's core operations, the process failed to produce wise budgeting decisions, the director said in a letter to his regional directors.

Here's a sale not to be missed if you find yourself near Olympic National Park in mid-December.

Poet, ranger, author, documentarian. Shelton Johnson has done it all. And now he's been recognized for his excellence as a national park interpreter with the Freeman Tilden Award.