Three miles in length, Long Lake feels like a peaceful summer camp pond, ringed with snug cottages, leafy trees, and sunny wildflowers. Nothing about the idyllic scene reveals the perilous hardships of one man’s odyssey to reach gold-rush Alaska.

An effort to convince the National Park Service that feral horses are an integral part of Theodore Roosevelt National Park has garnered nearly 4,000 signatures to support a North Dakota Legislature resolution supporting the equines.

Grand Prismatic Spring is the largest hot spring in the United States, and one of the largest in the world. The feature is located in Midway Geyser Basin—so named because it is between the Upper and Lower Geyser Basins—and is one of the most popular attractions in Yellowstone National Park.

It was just over a month ago when the federal government was staring at the possibility of a shutdown. Little seemingly has changed in the ensuing weeks, other than that the U.S. House of Representatives has a new speaker in Mike Johnson from Louisiana, and the full chamber has settled on its budget numbers for fiscal 2024, which started back on October 1. While most national parks likely will close if there is a government shutdown on Friday, what is more pressing for the National Park Service is what budget numbers Congress will settle on for the current fiscal year and whether President Biden will go along with them.