National Park Service

With more than 4 million people visiting Yosemite National Park last year ? and that number expected to increase this year ? it's no wonder lodging inside the park is snatched up quickly. "We typically sell out during the summer season," Delaware North Cos. spokeswoman Lisa Cesaro said of its Yosemite accommodations (Ahwahnee Hotel, Yosemite Lodge at the Falls, Curry Village and the housekeeping camp on the Merced River; the Wawona Hotel, and in the back country, Tuolumne Meadows Lodge, White Wolf Lodge and the High Sierra camps)

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar on Wednesday recommended designation of the San Gabriel River watershed and most of the San Gabriel Mountains as a national recreation area, making the popular playground eligible for additional law enforcement, interpretive signs, hiking trails, trash collection and other services. Salazar's long-awaited recommendation to Congress seeks to balance a crush of tourists with conservation. The designation would transform the 655,000-acre range, portions of the San Gabriel River and Rio Hondo corridors and Puente-Chino Hills into a unit of the National Park system co-managed by the National Park Service, federal officials said.

If you're a Civil War buff or you're planning a trip to a Civil War site, a new  National Park Service website can help you. Even if you're not going anywhere, the website is fascinating to browse, from its lists of places to visit to its facts to the people who played major roles in the war. I'm not sure it's as popular as the recently released 1940 Census data that slowed traffic on that site to a crawl this week,...

Political leaders and outdoors enthusiasts expressed dismay Thursday over new details about an Interior Department recommendation for changes in federal management of a popular region of the San Gabriel Mountains. "The proposal raises many questions, and I want answers from the National Park Service and the U.S. Forest Service as to why this hybrid came about," U.S. Rep. Judy Chu (D-Monterey Park) said in an interview. The Interior Department announced Wednesday that it is recommending to Congress that the U.S. Forest Service and the National Park Service collaborate in the region, which includes a portion of the Angeles National Forest stretching from Sylmar to roughly five miles west of Interstate 15. Under the proposal, the region essentially would remain national forest land managed by the cash-strapped Forest Service.

Robert S. Chandler, who dealt with complex problems as superintendent of many of the country's largest national parks and took the lead in implementing the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area in the late 1970s and early '80s, has died. He was 74. Chandler, a resident of Tehachapi, Calif., died Dec. 23 of multiple myeloma at a hospital in Bakersfield, said his son, Alan Chandler. In a 38-year career with the National Park Service that began in 1958 and included serving as superintendent of the Grand Canyon, Olympic and Everglades national parks, Chandler was known as an effective leader who worked with local communities and state and government officials on tough issues.

The National Park Service , the agency that overseas 397 national parks, battlefields, monuments, historic sites, seashores and even scenic byways, turns 96 on Saturday. Some parks are older than that -- Yellowstone, the nation's oldest park, was created in 1872 -- and some are much younger. Gates of the Arctic National Park and Preserve , for example, is little known even though it stretches 8.4 million acres in Alaska's Brooks Range. It became a national park and preserve in 1980.

The National Park Service is launching a study of sites in California and other states associated with the life and work of labor leader Cesar E. Chavez for possible designation as a national historic landmark or addition to the national park system. "The life of Cesar Chavez and people like him who have worked to make this country a better, more perfect union deserve to be recognized as part of the history of America," Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said Thursday. "As stewards of the history of this great nation we look forward to working with the Chavez family, the United Farm Workers and communities throughout California and Arizona to determine how best to preserve this great legacy."

One day deep in the administration of George W. Bush — a time of tumult among environmentalists and conservationists — Roger Kennedy found himself shaking his head and sighing. The Endangered Species Act was in the cross hairs of a Republican Congress and his beloved National Park Service, which Kennedy directed from 1993 to 1997, was under assault. Kennedy was disgusted by the partisan bickering. When had stewardship of the environment become a political football, he asked, posing a rhetorical question to a reporter.

A proper response must be made to Michael McCalley's charge that the National Park Service is a "Gestapo-like organization" (letter, May 2). I have never encountered or observed a park ranger treating visitors without professional respect and helpfulness, in any of my visits to over 40 national park units in the last five years. I have seen park visitors bring their own problems to a park and deliberately break clearly posted park rules, commit damage to the environment, or bring harm to property or others.

Re "Parks vs. profits," editorial, Nov. 3 National parks shelter spectacular examples of natural and cultural history. Diverse landscapes, such as the red rock canyons of Zion and the alpine lakes of Glacier Park, offer myriad opportunities for recreation and study. Misguided efforts by Deputy Assistant Interior Secretary Paul Hoffman and Rep. Richard Pombo (R-Tracy) to change the National Park Service's management policies and to jettison park units countermand public opinion and defy common sense.

Tule Lake Segregation Center in Tulelake, Calif., just south of the Oregon border, was the largest of the 10 relocation camps across the country where Japanese Americans were rounded up and held during World War II. Now the story of the former camp will be told through traveling exhibits and a restored building at what has become a national historic landmark. The National Park Service awarded $1.4 million in grants Tuesday to fund projects in seven states to help tell the story of the 120,000 detainees scattered nationwide.

  Americans love big national parks in the West, seven of which made the 10 most visited parks in the country for 2012. More than 282 million people visited U.S. national parks in 2012, up 3 million from the year before, according to National Park Service statistics. And the least visited national park? Aniakchak National Monument & Preserve in remote southern Alaska, which claimed just 19 visitors last year. "No Lines No Waiting!" reads the park's website. Two California sites made the least visited list too, but more on that later.

ANACAPA ISLAND - Just as factories brag about their accident-free days, Channel Islands National Park is showing off this rugged island's rat-free decade. To get rid of Rattus rattus , officials had a helicopter shower one-square-mile of Anacapa with poisonous green pellets in 2001 and 2002. On Wednesday, they ferried a boatload of reporters and scientists to the square-mile chain of three islets and declared victory. "The last thing we needed was a project that got only 99.9% of all the island's rats," said Kate Faulkner, a National Park Service biologist.

POINT REYES NATIONAL SEASHORE - To hear Kevin Lunny tell it, he's just a little guy, draining his life's savings to stand up to a heartless federal agency bent on closing down his family's oyster farm here. It's a compelling tale, a years-long soap opera replete with allegations of scientific misconduct and government overreach. Tea party activists have taken up his cause, citing it as an example of government quashing free enterprise and environmentalism run amok. Lunny also has the support of powerhouse conservative law firms representing him pro bono, and Cause of Action, a Washington, D.C.-based government watchdog group with ties to the conservative Koch brothers.

Yosemite Valley would have more camp sites and parking spaces - and the number of daily visitors would not be reduced - under a National Park Service plan intended to ease congestion in one of the country's most scenic spots. The proposal is the agency's third attempt to produce a legally acceptable management plan for the Merced River and the ever popular valley that it flows through. Environmental groups have twice sued the agency, winning court orders that compelled the park service to draw up new blueprints.

Defiant oyster farmer Kevin Lunny is fighting back against the decision last week by Interior Secretary Ken Salazar to allow the farm's  permit to operate in Point Reyes National Seashore to expire. With that edict, the 2,200-acre portion in Drakes Estero will be managed as federal wilderness. There was little chance that Lunny would accept Salazar's ruling, and this week the Washington, D.C.-based government accountability group Cause of Action announced its intention to sue the National Park Service on Lunny's behalf.

Conrad L. Wirth, 93, longest-serving director of the National Park Service. The son of a park administrator, Wirth was born in a city park in Hartford, Conn., and brought up in another one in Minneapolis. He studied landscape architecture at the University of Massachusetts and was in private practice for five years as a landscaper and town planner, and then worked for the National Capital Park and Planning Commission in Washington.

The Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area, a unit of the National Park Service, offers the following tips for springtime hiking in the Santa Monica Mountains: * Water is life. Carry plenty of water and drink it. One quart or more for short walks. More for longer hikes. Alcohol is not a good substitute for water. * Sun protection. Wear sunscreen, hat and sunglasses. Long-sleeved shirts are recommended on sunny days. * Never hike alone; use the buddy system.

The federal government cleared the way Thursday for waters off the Northern California coast to become the first marine wilderness in the continental United States, ending a contentious political battle that pitted a powerful U.S. senator against the National Park Service. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar settled the dispute by refusing to extend a permit for a commercial oyster farm operating in Point Reyes National Seashore. Congress designated the area as potential wilderness in 1976 but put that on hold until the farm's 40-year federal permit ended.

If you want to know why environmentalism has so little political traction these days, you need to go no further than Point Reyes, Calif. The beautiful Point Reyes National Seashore just north of San Francisco may be the most interesting national parkland in the country. It combines designated wilderness with operating ranches and dairy farms, and it is now embroiled in an utterly manufactured controversy. At the center of the dispute is Drakes Bay Oyster Co., which operates on Drakes Estero, a spectacular and ecologically significant estuary located in an area that has been federally designated as wilderness.