The dogs were large, with pointy ears, and they appeared suddenly along the cobbled path, barking furiously. My husband Paul and I paused, then slowly crept past them as we murmured pet-friendly reassurances at their bared teeth. They jumped around a bit but did not draw nearer; all bark, no bite. A cheerful man hobbled down the path on his cane, reaffirming this in Portuguese and gestures and tone that conveyed his meaning to our linguistically challenged ears. Chuckling, he waved us on our way from the tiny stone village into a sparse forest in Portugal’s sole national park—Peneda-Gerês.

The second season of road construction in Sequoia National Park is scheduled to begin Monday and will take place on an approximately mile-long segment of the Generals Highway between Amphitheater Point and Crystal Cave Road.

Up to 30 wolves will be set free at Isle Royale National Park over the next three years under a plan the National Park Service has settled on in a bid to bring genetic diversity back to the park's few remaining wolves.

Just as road work on the main route to Zion National Park's south entrance is winding down ... it's moving to the Kolob Canyons entrance of the park located in southwestern Utah.