A "short-haul" operation, in which individuals are hooked onto a rope dangled beneath a helicopter, was used to rescue three backpackers from a ledge in Kings Canyon National Park.

A search is under way in the high country of Kings Canyon National Park for three young men who failed to return Monday from a planned 65-mile trek.

One of the last act's Jon Jarvis took as director of the National Park Service's Pacific West office before moving to Washington as the agency's director was to approve the erection of a cellphone tower near Grant Grove in Kings Canyon National Park.

The mountain yellow-legged frog was once one of the most abundant vertebrates in the Sierra Nevada. The flash of its yellow legs could be seen and the echo of its croaking could be heard across the Sierra’s alpine lakes, even those nestled at 12,000 feet that contain watery habitats typically too cold for amphibians. Unfortunately, that empire began to crumble as long ago as 1850 when non-native trout were first transplanted into some of those lakes to increase fishing opportunities.