A series of meetings to discuss whether an area of southern California that generally includes the mountains encircling the San Fernando, La Crescenta, Santa Clarita, Simi and Conejo Valleys of Los Angeles and Ventura counties should be added to the National Park System will be held from mid-September into October.

Jim Cole has been on my mind again. The photo you see here is one I took not long ago a few steps from my computer keyboard. 2010 was to be Cole’s big summer for reaching a wider audience.

A search-and-rescue mission was under way in Denali National Park and Preserve on Tuesday for a 54-year-old Georgia man who failed to return from his hike on Sunday as planned.

Crews headed out for their fourth day of searching Tuesday for a small plane with four aboard that failed to return from a remote shore in Katmai National Park and Preserve.