Greetings this Sunday morning from Council Bluffs, Iowa, where we enjoyed a hotel stay following six consecutive nights of tenting along the Missouri River. Both the humidity and temperature are rising as we move southeast, making the cool Montana nights of a little over a week ago a fond memory.

Native Athabascans called it the “High One.” And at 20,230 feet, Mt. McKinley in Denali National Park is a high one. In fact, it's the highest mountain in North America. Everything about Denali National Park is huge, wild and empty.

A mile south of Washtuchna, Washington, State Road 261 – which has been curling through close hills – suddenly straightens and drops down the wide Washtuchna Coulee. On either side of the road the land sweeps up to rocky outcroppings and ledges. Drive 60 mph and you’re shooting across the landscape at about the speed of the ice age floodwaters that first tore open this former river channel some 15,000 years ago.

A small handful of bills that would impact the National Park System have been sent to the full Senate for consideration. Among them is legislation that would shift Valles Caldera National Preserve out from under a trust and into the park system.