In the southwest corner of Pennsylvania, just about an hour shy of the Ohio state line, sit a couple of National Park System units that might not be on your radar. I wouldn’t call them obscure, but being from the West Coast I had not heard of either until my NPS passport led me there a few months ago. Treasury Secretary Albert Gallatin’s wilderness house at Friendship Hill National Historic Site and Fort Necessity National Battlefield, a small palisade built by then Lt. Colonel George Washington at the very beginning of the French and Indian War, introduced me to history that I was only vaguely familiar with.

A plan to open up more of Glen Canyon National Recreation Area in Utah to off-road vehicles has been approved by the National Park Service, which drew criticism for the amount of impacts expected to accompany the plan.

The National Park Service has settled on plans for a new pier at Santa Cruz Island in Channel Islands National Park, but construction issues, funding cycles, and avoiding the height of the tourist season mean the installation won't begin before late next year on the multi-million-dollar pier.

What is the future of the hurricane-ravaged Caneel Bay Resort at Virgin Islands National Park? The Virgin Islands Daily News recently asked numerous questions around that issue and got some answers, and some deflections, from CBI Acquisitions, which holds the lease to the property.