Authorities on Tuesday recovered a man's body on Mount Rainier after a group of hikers discovered some clothes under rapidly melting snow a day earlier.

The body was found near a trail -- at about 8,000 feet in elevation -- at Muir Snowfield at Mount Rainier National Park. A group made the discovery as it descended from Camp Muir.

Authorities aren't certain, but there's a "good chance" the body is connected to four missing climbers who were lost in storms in January, park spokesperson Patti Wold told NBC News. 

The Pierce County Medical Examiner is working to identify the body. It appeared to have been "under snow for some time," Wold said in a statement.

No other bodies were found, but the search for the climbers continues on a limited basis. Warmer weather over the next couple months could melt more snow and possibly reveal more evidence.

The climbers were part of two separate groups lost in January: Mark Vucich, 37, of San Diego and Michelle Trojanowski, 30, of Atlanta; and Sork (Erik) Yang, 52, of Springfield, Ore. and Seol Hee Jin, 52, from South Korea, according to Seattle's NBC affiliate KING 5.

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A storm that tore through Tennessee killed at least four people while tossing boats, tipping over trailers at a campground and toppling hundreds of trees with winds up to 70 mph.

A child and her grandmother died when a double-decker pontoon boat on a Chattanooga lake capsized after being hit by a strong gust, Dan Hicks, a spokesman with the state's Wildlife Resources Agency, told msnbc.com. The grandmother had been hospitalized but later died of her injuries.

The storm "came up really quick ... they were trying to get back to the bank," said Hicks, who noted the high profile of the boat probably contributed to the accident.

"It was the fastest storm I've ever seen," witness Stan Crawley told The Chattanoogan. "It was fine, then two minutes later the storm was here. The waves were three and four feet high. We saw the pontoon boat flip on its top."

The other two deaths, and eight injuries, were at Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

Teams on Friday were searching for more victims from the Thursday evening storm, but felt confident the toll would not rise. While rangers "have not walked all trails," spokesman Carey Jones told msnbc.com, all visitors "appear to be accounted for" based on a search of main roads and public areas.

Jeff Farrell / The Mountain Press via AP

The roof of the Carl Ownby & Co. hardware store, background center, sits on the Juvenile Detention Center, foreground right, in Sevierville, Tenn., on Thursday after winds ripped it off and hurled it across a five-lane street. No injuries were reported.

A man riding a motorcycle died when hit by a tree limb and a woman was crushed to death by a falling tree that injured three others, the park said in a statement. A girl, 7, and her father were airlifted to a hospital. Their conditions were not known. The girl's mother suffered minor injuries.

Much of the damage was at the popular Cades Cove.

Staff from other parks were being brought in to help with the search and cleanup, the Knoxville News Sentinel reported. "We're calling all hands on deck," said Deputy Park Superintendent Kevin Fitzgerald. "The most important thing right now is to get crews safely in there to assess what's going on."

Many roads inside the park were blocked by trees, and access into the park was blocked on the highway leading out of Townsend.

On nearby Douglas Lake, many boats at Mountain Cove Marina were destroyed or damaged.

Mark Northern said he was in his houseboat at the marina when the storm hit.

"It just took me and everybody on that dock like we were just toys," he told NBC affiliate WBIR-TV. "It happened so fast that I didn't even know where I was until I walked out to the front of the houseboat ... there was wreckage as high as you could see."

Several trailers were knocked over at a campground in Wears Valley, the Knoxville News Sentinel reported

The storm cut power to some 56,000 households in eastern Tennessee, including parts of Knoxville. The local utility said it could take several days for power to be restored to everyone.

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Favorable weather conditions Thursday allowed authorities to recover the body of a Mount Rainier National Park ranger who fell to his death on June 21.

Rescuers used a helicopter to retrieve the body of Nick Hall, the park ranger who fell 2,500 feet during a rescue operation on Mount Rainier.

Thursday's recovery went smoothly, spokeswoman Patti Wold told The Associated Press. Clear weather conditions Thursday were a boon, after strong winds and adverse winter conditions prevented recovery efforts in the days following the accident.

Seattle's NBC News affiliate KING 5 reported that the Sunrise area of Mount Rainier was closed for the day for the recovery.

The body of Hall, 34, will be taken to the Pierce County medical examiner's office in Tacoma, about 35 miles south of Seattle, AP reported.

Hall was part of a team attempting to rescue climbers who fell at the 11,000-foot level of Mount Rainier. The four-year veteran of Mount Rainier National Park's climbing ranger program was assisting with the helicopter rescue when he fell to his death.

Hall is not the first fatality on the mountain this year. In January, ranger Margaret Anderson was killed by a gunman in the park after trying to stop the gunman's vehicle.

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Yosemite National Park is shuttering cabins, campsites and other structures in areas found to be at greatest risk of boulders crashing down.

In a statement released Thursday, the park said it made the decision after a new study for the first time delineated "a rockfall hazard line" in the Yosemite Valley. 

Eighteen more cabins will be off limits in Curry Village, where in 2008 the equivalent of 570 dump trucks of boulders from the 3,000-foot-tall Glacier Point hit 18 cabins and sent visitors fleeing for their lives. The park closed 233 of the 600 cabins in the village after the scare, and later relocated 125. The 18 closed Thursday will be relocated to safer areas as well.

Other areas impacted include:

• Two employee dorms and parts of three others will close, forcing the park to move 30 staff and worsening a critical housing shortage;
• Eight campsites at Camp 4, a $5-a-night bargain near El Capitan used mainly by climbers, will be relocated nearby;
• The LeConte Memorial, which includes a library and educational site, as well as the Curry Village Amphitheater will host fewer programs. 

The park expected the decision would "reduce the overall risk ... by 95 percent."

Park spokesman Kari Cobb emphasized to msnbc.com that the park is "fighting against" erroneous news reports suggesting that park areas are being closed off to hikers. It's the structures and campsites, not the recreational areas, being impacted, she said.

National Park Service

Rockfalls confirmed in the Yosemite Valley between 1857 and 2009.

The greatest rockfall dangers are within 180 feet of the base of the cliffs, the study concluded, while adding that there is also a 10 percent chance a potentially deadly boulder will fall outside of the zone every 50 years. 

The Yosemite Lodge and the Ahwahnee Hotel are not located in the danger zone. 

Laser mapping was used to create the first detailed look at the valley's towering cliffs, which ultimately could lead to identifying which ones are most vulnerable to rockfalls.

After the 2008 fall, the Associated Press reported that while Yosemite officials were aware of earlier studies showing Glacier Point was susceptible to rock falls they did not warn visitors and repaired and reused rock-battered cabins. 

Cobb noted that damaged cabins had been repaired since the park's early years and that since 2006, when Yosemite's first geologist was hired, "we have never intentionally left open cabins or other high visitor use areas that we know to be susceptible to higher probability of rockfall."

"It is impractical to put signs at every location that may pose a risk to visitors," she added. "We are surrounded by 3,000 foot granite cliffs that actively experience rockfall about once per week at different locations. The most we can do is educate visitors and provide them safe accommodations while they are staying here."

Rockfalls in and around Curry Village have killed two people and injured two dozen since 1996, the AP stated. Since officials began keeping track in 1857, 15 people have died throughout the valley and 85 have been injured from falling rocks. 

More than 900 rockfalls have been documented at Yosemite, the park stated. 

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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CODY, Wyoming -- Search teams on Friday recovered the body of an 18-year-old woman who plunged 400 feet to her death on the first day of her job at Yellowstone National Park when a rocky ledge overlooking a canyon gave way beneath her, officials said.

The woman, whose identity was being withheld pending notification of her family, arrived in the park on Thursday to begin a new job with a private concessions company in Yellowstone, park spokesman Dan Hottle said.

She and three others went hiking early that evening along the edge of a popular canyon called the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, on the North Rim trail, Montana's KAJ18 station reported.

The group had ventured onto an off-trail promontory at a spot called Inspiration Point when the accident happened.

At national parks, where are all the young people?

A member of the hiking party used a cellphone to alert park authorities. Yellowstone Park rangers said they responded to the 911 call around 6 p.m. local time (8 p.m. ET) on Thursday, KAJ18 reported.

A rescue team that was dispatched to the scene later reported spotting a badly mangled figure about 400 feet below the rim of the 1,500-foot-deep canyon, officials said.

Environmental woes imperil America's national parks

Rescuers concluded the woman could not have survived the fall. With nightfall advancing, search teams returned on Friday and retrieved the body in a three-hour helicopter operation.

Hottle said another member of the hiking party narrowly averted tumbling down the cliff.

"The 18-year-old was sitting on a ledge when the rock fell away. Someone was standing right behind her and, miraculously, didn't fall," he said.

According to Denver's ABC 7 News, friends of the woman said she was from Russia. This could not be immediately verified.

What's behind all the deaths at Yosemite?

Fatal falls are relatively rare at Yellowstone, accounting for fewer than a dozen deaths - among millions of visitors - over the past 30 years.

Reuters contributed to this report.

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Pat Owen / National Park Service

This three-pawed bear was first spotted in Alaska's Denali National Park last year.

A three-pawed grizzly bear affectionately known as "Tripawed" is back in public view at Alaska's Denali National Park, after it was first spotted last year with a bloody stump where its right front foot had been.

"He's got a really funny gait," park biologist Pat Owen told the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner. "He kind of hops around."

At least so far, the bear doesn't seem to be a threat to park visitors. "It does not seem interested in camper food," park spokeswoman Kris Fister told msnbc.com. "It has only been observed doing normal bear things, i.e. digging for roots, etc."

Owen said it's not clear how the bear lost its paw, but the wound appears to have completely healed.

"It was a really clean cut, which leads part of me to believe it might not be a trap accident," she said. "We have no idea what happened."

The bear "showed up two weeks ago along the (park) highway," Owen added. "He's been very visible. A lot of people have seen him already."

The park considered euthanizing Tripawed last year, but Owen contacted some of her peers and was told bears missing appendages isn't that uncommon, so he was left alone.

Last weekend, the bear showed up at a vacant campground but officials won't be doing anything just yet to move him out.

"For now we'll let him do his thing and see what happens," Owen said. "He seems to get along just fine."

Tourist season officially begins on May 20, and if the bear is still around then the park will probably put up signs about the bear to avoid having to answer the same questions over and over, Owen said.

As for tracking the bear, Owen said "he’s pretty identifiable. I don’t think we need a radio collar to keep track of him."

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