With a successful community fund-drive behind them, Olympic National Park officials are ready to kick off the winter season on Hurricane Ridge, one that hopefully will feature access to the snowy ridge seven days a week.

Winter long has been regarded as the slow season for national park visits, and that's a good thing if you prefer to have the parks to yourself. With most travelers confined by school schedules to the summer months, and many convinced winter is a bad time to be outdoors, you can savor the best of the parks from coast to coast in winter. Here are some snapshots of wintry fun in the parks that bear that out.

Counting sea turtles is no easy task when you're scanning the ocean looking for them, but that's just what the National Ocean Service's Office of National Marine Sanctuaries and the National Marine Fisheries Service did earlier this fall.