If you're heading to Joshua Tree National Park next week, you should know that about 11 miles of the Pinto Basin Road will be reconstructed, beginning Monday.

Great Smoky Mountains National Park and the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians hope some financial incentives, and disincentives, will speed repairs to the Newfound Gap Road, which was severed by a landslide in January.

For going on 15 years now scientists and researchers have been sifting through the landscape of Great Smoky Mountains National Park -- from streambeds and caves into the tree tops -- to see just how much life there is. What they've found will be celebrated in March when a scientific conference is held in Gatlingburg.

Great Smoky Mountains National Park, which already has lost its main road to a rain-induced landslide, continues to suffer from torrential rains that are washing out other roads and even taking out a 70-foot-long foot bridge along the popular Chimney Tops Trail.