While spring is showing up a bit earlier than usual at Olympic National Park, visitors trying to get a jump on the high season need to be aware of a few things out in the park.

2014 was a record-setting year for attendance in the National Park System, where nearly 293 million visitors spent time, a jump of more than 5 million from the record year of 1999, according to official figures. While most of the "name brand" parks were packed, there were still some sites in the system where you could find some solitude.

At the end of the day, after five days of fruitless searching, Olympic National Park rangers had no leads to follow to find Jim Griffin.

A prominent figure of Seattle, Washington, Carsten Lien grounded his career in business and government with a love for Olympic National Park. Alfred Runte recounts how Lien fought to save the park after observing that it had been logged. The result was a history of the park disclosing the controversy of saving old-growth forests from the Park Service itself. The book is again available as Olympic Battleground: Creating and Defending Olympic National Park. Second edition, reissued.