Mountain goats are spectacular animals, even iconic in places such as Glacier National Park, but they can cause problems in parks where they don't belong. At Olympic National Park, where a 1920s era introduction project brought non-native goats into the landscape, officials are embarking on a management plan for how to deal with the animals. Adding weight to the need for such a plan was the fatal goring of a hiker in the park four years ago.

Washington state’s Puget Sound is a forested metropolis, braided with inlets and bays and ringed by steep, glacier-clad peaks. On the west skyline, the stately, wet Olympic Mountains grab moisture from the ocean clouds to nurture the temperate rain forest of Olympic National Park. To the east the queen-mother’s throne, nearly three-mile-high Mount Rainier, holds court on clear days in its namesake park.

A spring ski tour in the Cascade Range of Washington state turned into tragedy when a snow slide swept away one of the two Seattle men and his body was later spotted by North Cascades National Park rangers from a helicopter.

Time is running out to land a ticket to a gala affair in support of North Cascades, Olympic, and Mount Rainier national parks.