National Parks Traveler

Decades of salt air, ocean spray, and storms have taken their toll on the O'Shaughnessy Seawall at Golden Gate National Recreation Area in California. The effects -- cracked and spaulding concrete -- will be erased in the coming months as crews repair the wall at Ocean Beach in the NRA.

Rock outcrops at Shenandoah National Park, places such as Hawksbill, Old Rag, and Little Stony Man, offer great opportunities for viewing the surrounding landscape as well as climbing. But concerns about visitor pressures on these features have led park officials to develop and adopt a Rock Outcrop Management Plan that aims to protect these natural features and their biological communities while continuing to allow visitor access.

Gunshots could soon be echoing across the Antietam, Monocacy, and Manassas national battlefields near the nation's capital as National Park Service personnel work to bring down populations of white-tailed deer that are far above numbers that can interfere with natural revegetation on the landscape.

Fall can be a great season for visiting the North Rim of Grand Canyon National Park, but to take advantage of the full range of visitor facilities and services, don't wait too long—the annual closure of that area for the upcoming winter will begin on October 16, 2014.