A 34-year-old Mount Rainier National Park ranger was shot and killed in the line of duty Sunday as she tried to apprehend a man who fled a check stop at Paradise. Fellow rangers were prevented from reaching the downed ranger for about 90 minutes as the shooter pinned them down with gunfire.

Tourism traffic to Alaskan units of the National Park System grew by roughly 2 percent in 2011 to a total of 2.32 million visitors, according to preliminary National Park Service statistics.

We've been fortunate to have been supplied with images of the national parks from some of the best park photographers in the country, and we'd like to take a minute to thank them once again for their help in illustrating stories on the Traveler.

In 1895, Mackinac National Park became the first national park to be abolished. It would not be the last. More than two dozen other sites or areas with independent identities have been pruned from the National Park System.