Great Smoky Mountains National Park, which ranked third in visitation in 2024, is heading into the high season with a half-dozen of its campgrounds closed for unspecified reasons, but believed to be due to staffing levels.

March 27 marks the anniversary of the onset of Mauna Loa’s dramatic 1868 eruption, when lava flows from the Southwest Rift Zone severely impacted the Kaʻū district. However, this may not have been the only place that saw significant changes during the eruption, since new research suggests a simultaneous collapse at the volcano’s summit—similar to events at Kīlauea in 2018.

The Federal Highway Administration is completing its first round of improvements to Cunard Road (Route 9) in New River Gorge National Park and Preserve in West Virginia and plans to reopen for access on Monday. The road closed last November for upgrades from just past the trailhead for the Brooklyn Mine Trail extending to the river access at Cunard.

The National Park Service has awarded $2,289,880.56 in Battlefield Land Acquisition Grants through the American Battlefield Protection Program to protect 155.39 acres at Civil War battlefields in Mississippi and Virginia, as well as 16.2 acres at a Revolutionary War battlefield in Pennsylvania.