More than two dozen personnel were searching an area near Paradise in Mount Rainier National Park on Sunday for a missing snowshoer who failed to return from an afternoon outing the day before.

We like to think that national parks are just that: serene, picturesque "parks" where we can, if only for a moment or two, escape the ugliness and stress of the world beyond their borders. But as the New Year's Day shooting at Mount Rainier National Park that left a young ranger dead proved only too well, national parks are not always the sanctuaries we'd like them to be.

Mount Rainier National Park will remain closed to the public until Saturday to allow for park staff to grieve in the wake of the murder of Ranger Margaret Anderson, officials said Tuesday.

An Iraqi war veteran wanted in connection with the slaying of a ranger in Mount Rainier National Park was found dead Monday afternoon in a drainage near one of the park's hallmark waterfalls just south of Paradise.