If there ever was a model of the value of service in our national parks, it is Megan Cantrell. She first signed up with the Student Conservation Association during the summer of her junior year in high school. After those hot, grueling months fixing eroded trails in Yellowstone, she was hooked.

They're big, they're red, and they're heading back to North Cascades National Park this summer.

A kayaking expedition and landing site programs inaugurated the Southern Lake Michigan Water Trail on June 13-14. The new paddling route, which extends 40+ miles between Chicago and Michigan City, includes a 15-mile stretch of the waters and shoreline at Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore.

If you’d like to comment on wilderness resource values and management alternatives in the largest named wilderness in the continental U.S., you’ve still got time, but you’d better hurry. The deadline for public input on the Death Valley Wilderness Stewardship Plan has been extended to June 30.