The season for hiking to the top of Half Dome in Yosemite National Park officially begins Friday when cables leading to the summit will be put in place...as long as the weather cooperates.

Yosemite Valley can feel like a bustling town at times, with traffic jams, wailing emergency sirens, and tour buses and tractor-trailer trucks snaking along the roads. While Yosemite National Park planners are trying to better manage some of that crowding, the American Recreation Coalition fears they're going too far and threatening the visitor experience.

Over a century ago, John Muir's vision for Yosemite National Park included areas that were not included in the present park. Now there's bipartisan support for efforts to add about 1,500 acres adjoining the western side of Yosemite to protect the area from development.

Despite taking in what the Green, Yampa, and other tributaries large and small contribute, the Colorado River is in a death spiral, over-allocated and a victim of growing climate change, left in a state of constant thirst that has made the river the most-endangered in the country, according to American Rivers.