Five days paddling around Shoshone Lake in the backcountry of Yellowstone National Park. Warm, mostly sunny, days and cool nights with occasional passing showers. No bugs of any significance. It was, as you might assume, sublime. Best of all, it was time spent with my two sons and an old friend, untethered from the grid.

Going underground at Mammoth Cave National Park could cost you a buck or two more in 2014 under a proposal up for public review.

Indiana Dune National Lakeshore preserves some fine natural resources and recreational opportunities near Chicago, but public confusion about what areas are—or are not—part of the Lakeshore creates a bit of an "identity crisis. The park hopes a series new graphic logos will help the public understand that the widely dispersed visitor areas are all part of one national park.

Two Yellowstone National Park hikers sustained relatively minor injuries when they encountered a sow grizzly and her cub on a trail southwest of Canyon Village.