The season for recreational fires is under way at Ocean Beach in Golden Gate National Recreation Area in California. New fire rings installed last week will welcome visitors to enjoy s’mores and sunsets on the beach once again.

The contracting process for rehabilitation of 12 miles of the Lake Crescent section of Highway 101 and four miles of East Beach Road at Olympic National Park in Washington state remains under way, so this spring’s construction schedule has been adjusted. Construction is now slated to begin in late April this year. This project is being managed collaboratively by the Federal Highway Administration and the National Park Service.

Two public meetings are on the calendar for late March to discuss a new North Carolina Department of Transportation passenger ferry service from Hatteras Island to Ocracoke on Cape Hatteras National Seashore.

The spine of the Appalachian Range runs north and south through the Mid- and South-Atlantic states, a rumpled stretch of mountains that long has provided a corridor for species. One uninvited species, the Hemlock Woolly Adelgid, arrived in 1951, and since then has attacked hemlock forests once commonplace in Shenandoah National Park, the Blue Ridge Parkway, and Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Since 1988 the National Park Service has been battling the tiny insect, and has met with varying success in those three parks. While much work remains to be done, there is optimism some of the hemlock stands will be saved. In the following stories, we take a look at the campaign.