While humans have been soaking in the warm springs found in the remote Saline Valley of Death Valley National Park for perhaps thousands of years, use during the past 50 or so years has the National Park Service taking a look at how the area is being used and what needs to be done to guide visitor use there. The Beat generation and the hippies had their way with it, the Park Service notes, but how should what they created be managed going forward?

Volunteer sweat combined with rakes and 750 gallons of water seem to have been successful in erasing vehicle tracks joyriders left on the playa known as the "Racetrack" in Death Valley National Park.

Forty years after the Eureka Valley evening-primrose and Eureka dune grass at Death Valley National Park's Eureka Dunes were listed as endangered species under the Endangered Species Act, the evening-primrose has been removed entirely from the list while the dune grass has been down-listed to threatened.

Different road surfaces -- asphalt, concrete, gravel -- create different sounds when traffic passes over them. And that's why Death Valley National Park staff will be listening carefully in the coming months to decide which surface best to use when roads need resurfacing.