A newly designed license plate allows North Carolina motorists to show their support for Great Smoky Mountains National Park while contributing dollars to projects funded by Friends of the Smokies.

Visiting Exit Glacier in Kenai Fjords National Park during the winter is getting a little bit easier now that the National Park Service has authorized snowcoach travel to the popular destination.

Great weather, when compared to January 2011, is thought to be behind a nearly 24 percent increase in visitation to Great Smoky Mountains National Park this past January.

While legislation has been signed into law by President Obama to give Crater Lake National Park officials final say on whether to allow helicopter sightseeing tours over the park, that authority is lacking in many other units of the National Park System.