Backpacks are getting smaller, both out of recognition that aging Baby Boomers don’t have the backs to carry all they once did, and that Millennials wouldn’t think of carrying what their parents once did.

Heavy snowfall in Glacier National Park this week has heightened avalanche danger along the Going-to-the-Sun Road and prompted officials to limit access to the road, which has yet to be cleared from end-to-end from winter's snows.

A cleaner Chesapeake Bay watershed. That's the goal of a multi-state agreement written to focus on restoring and protecting the bay and its feeder streams. If it succeeds, it would benefit a good number of National Park System units, foremost the Captain John Smith Chesapeake National Historic Trail that touches parts of Virginia, Delaware, Maryland and the District of Columbia.

It’s hot here. Welcome to the beginning of summer in the Southwest. Two days ago it was raining and near freezing and I was complaining about it at Mesa Verde and now it’s sweat time. But those rains have turned the Needles District of Canyonlands National Park into a veritable flower garden. Everywhere I look there are blooms.