A National Parks Conservation Association campaign launching today is designed to rally public support against threats facing such iconic national parks as Yellowstone, Yosemite, and Grand Canyon with hopes the Obama administration will step up and use the tools and authority it has to protect the parks.

Alfred Runte, in his article Stephen Mather’s Ghost: Revisiting the Consensus for National Parks, published 6 September 2015 by National Parks Traveler, takes issue with the prevailing narrative that Mather, the first director of the National Park Service, was (mostly) responsible for the 1916 origin of the NPS. Instead, Dr. Runte attributes an important role for railroads in the origin of certain national parks and of the NPS.

With the bears apparently sated, the folks at Glacier National Park have reopened the St. Mary Campground on the east side of the park.

Long-distance trail hikers soon will have a new checkbox on their to-do list: The Pacific Northwest National Scenic Trail, a 1,200-mile-long footpath stretching from the peaks of Glacier National Park and through North Cascades National Park to the Pacific Ocean shoreline of Olympic National Park.