National Park Service

Kate Cannon gazed across the high red desert to the snowy La Sal Mountains rising in sharp relief at the horizon. That view of uninterrupted nature is what draws nearly a million yearly visitors to this remote part of southeast Utah. "Look at the mountains," said Cannon, superintendent of Arches and neighboring Canyonlands national parks. "You can see them. Part of the majesty of this country is the grand sweeping views. The visitors do love it."

The National Park Service has informed Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger that his budget-cutting proposal to indefinitely close 220 California state parks could compel the federal government to take control of six parks that occupy former U.S. property, including Angel Island in San Francisco Bay, Point Sur State Historic Park in coastal Big Sur and Point Mugu State Park near Malibu.

Environmentalists sued the National Park Service in Los Angeles federal court Tuesday, charging that the agency has let free-grazing cattle, deer and elk trample and partially destroy one of its lushest holdings--Channel Islands National Park. The suit by the National Parks & Conservation Assn.

Two local congressmen have raised questions about an airborne raid on Santa Cruz Island hunting camps, asking the National Park Service to explain why such tactics were needed to arrest workers suspected of stealing Chumash artifacts. U.S. Reps.

A closer inspection of the earthquake-damaged Washington Monument found about half a dozen more cracks, and the structure will be fenced off while engineers decide how to repair it, the National Park Service said Wednesday night. The Lincoln and Jefferson memorials reopened one day after the East Coast's rare 5.8 temblor, but the Washington Monument will remain closed indefinitely. Finished in 1884, the monument is one of the capital's most popular tourist attractions, with about 1,700 visitors going inside each day. It is the world's tallest obelisk, standing more than 555 feet high.

Accusing the National Park Service of trying to usurp an important piece of black history, the family of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. banished the agency from the King birthplace and tomb Wednesday, escalating a conflict that has split the African American community and threatens the future of one of the city's biggest tourist draws. At the center of the dispute is a Park Service plan to build an $11.

National Park Service officials said Tuesday they will allow some snowmobiles this winter to exceed the pollution limits set by the Bush administration as part of the policy to permit snowmobiles in Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks. When the park service announced it would not enforce a snowmobile ban, which was to go into effect last winter, officials said they would seek to curb pollution from the machines by setting limits for carbon monoxide and hydrocarbon emissions.

In a hectic day of negotiations Thursday, the National Park Service granted negotiators a little more time to work out a complex deal to develop a mini-city on Ahmanson Ranch, just west of the San Fernando Valley. The park service, which has set aside $19.5 million to buy parkland as part of the massive development planned for Ahmanson Ranch, has requested $5,000 a day to extend its original March 31 deadline to close the $1-billion deal, officials said.

Comedian Bob Hope's offer to sell and donate 5,700 acres to a state parks agency increased pressure on the federal government to approve a controversial land swap in Cheeseboro Canyon--a condition of Hope's offer--but it did not satisfy critics of the swap. "We intend to continue to fight this," said Wilderness Society official Donald Hellmann, "probably even more strongly than before."

The faded color snapshot was like thousands left at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial--two soldiers, arm in arm, grinning and relaxed as if they were millions of miles from a war zone. But it was the degree of detail that caught Steve Black's eye: The name of each soldier was visible on his uniform shirt. Black, the National Park Service ranger who picks up the notes, flags, photos and personal effects left each night at the wall, started doing some research.