An effort to improve 16 miles of roads that hug picturesque Lake Crescent means visitors to Olympic National Park in Washington will want to plan ahead for the next three years to avoid multi-hour closures.

Olympic National Park's population of nonnative mountain goats has grown past 600 animals and could increase by 45 percent over the next five years if current reproduction trends continue and no efforts are made to blunt the population, according to a report from the U.S. Geological Survey.

A stormy forecast for the rest of the week has Olympic National Park staff in Washington state shutting down some roads and campgrounds as a precaution, while visitors to Mount Rainier National Park were warned to expect blizzard conditions and heavy snows. With a series of powerful storms forecast to begin later today, Olympic officials warned that high winds and very heavy rain were anticipated, raising the risk of falling trees and limbs, flooding and road damage.

Fisheries biologists monitoring restoration of the Elwha River and ecosystem in Olympic National Park recently confirmed that adult Chinook salmon, sockeye salmon, steelhead, and bull trout have all passed upstream through both the former Elwha and Glines Canyon dam sites to reach the upper Elwha River.