Whitebark pines, a keystone species that can impact spring runoff, nourish grizzly bears when they most need protein, and provide feasts for other wildlife, face a variety of threats, from climate change to a fungal disease. So important are these trees that researchers with Parks Canada are working to raise a veritable disease-resilient forest of whitebark pines.

Six months after a federal judge ruled that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service erred in its decision to deny Endangered Species Act protections for wolverines, the agency is reconsidering the matter and revisiting a past proposal to give the small predator a "threatened" designation under the act.

We are nearing the end of a trip of nearly three weeks during which we stayed in or visited 24 national park lodges in Yellowstone, Grand Teton, and Glacier national parks. As a conclusion to three weeks in three of America's most popular national parks we thought it might be worthwhile to offer some thoughts about the trip, the lodges, and the people.