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Yes, The Sequestration Has Hit The National Parks. But They're Still Open And Still Spectacular!

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Yes, our national parks are grappling with the loss of millions of dollars due to the failure of Congress and the Obama administration to treat the country's ailing fiscal condition.

But they're still open, and they remain spectacular places to explore.

I say that having recently visited Canyonlands and Capitol Reef national parks, where rangers were available for leading hikes into the past, campgrounds were full of laughing children darting about on bikes, and budget cuts were carefully tucked out of sight.

Indeed, around the National Park System parks seem to be making do.

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The sequestration hasn't dimmed the magnificence of Theodore Roosevelt National Park. Kurt Repanshek photo.

At Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming, the budget situation pulled communities together to help the park crews clear the interior roads of snow in time for the normal spring opening. Farther north at Glacier National Park in Montana, the Glacier National Park Conservancy contributed $10,000 to the efforts to plow the 50-mile Going-to-the-Sun Road so it can open on schedule as well.

At Acadia National Park in Maine, the spring opening is being pushed back a month to save money and avoid impacting the bulk of the vacation season later this summer. Along the Natchez Trace Parkway that rolls from Nashville, Tennessee, to Natchez, Mississippi, officials are juggling as best they can hours of visitor centers and comfort stations, along with grass cutting operations, to maintain a semblance of normalcy this summer. In short, park managers are trying to make do.

No doubt, as the high season begins to swing into gear we'll notice things when we visit the parks. Not as many ranger-led programs. Locked doors and shorter hours at some visitor centers. Closed campgrounds that make the ones remaining open more of a challenge to land a site in. Some tours at Mammoth Cave National Park won't be conducted this summer, campfire programs at other parks are being canceled, there will be no rangers to interpret the Cape Lookout Lighthouse at that national seashore.

But, by and large, the simple fact is that the parks are not closed, the views remain spectacular, and the access is largely up to you. That, actually, is pretty much the model the Park Service long has operated under -- come to the parks, enjoy yourself, and appreciate these natural, historic, and cultural treasures.

Since boyhood in New Jersey to my current grounding in Utah, I’ve had wonderful opportunities to explore the parks quite literally from A -- Acadia -- to Z -- Zion -- and never come away disappointed.

Even if there are fewer ranger-led programs this summer, you won’t want for enjoyment.

When my wife and I hit the road on Easter weekend to visit the Horseshoe Canyon unit of Canyonlands National Park in Utah, we happened upon a ranger ready to lead a tour into the canyon to view the Great Gallery rock art. This magnificent open air gallery, created thousands of years ago by Archaic nomads, rises solemnly above the wash. Painted, as well as chiseled, into the sandstone cliff, the images are mysterious as well as baffling. What thought spawned the Holy Ghost? How did the artists manage to create an 8-foot-tall figure so high on the sandstone wall? What messages were travelers supposed to take away from these images?

We had planned to do the hike ourselves, but we couldn't pass up a chance to share the experience with the ranger. It turned into a private tour, as no one else showed up. She added to the richness of our hike with a geology primer, details on the efforts decades ago to find oil that led to the trail down into Horseshoe Canyon, and in discussing both the rock art and the ecology within the canyon.

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The Great Gallery is incredible, with or without a ranger. Kurt Repanshek photo.

While these ranger-led hikes to the Great Gallery have been reduced from both Saturdays and Sundays to just Saturdays, and will end May 25, the canyon won't be locked, you'll still be able to hike down yourself and stand in awe before the rock art that has endured for thousands of years.

From Horseshoe Canyon we headed down the road to Capitol Reef, which was doing a booming business that weekend. The campgrounds were full, the visitor center busy with folks looking for guidebooks and souvenirs, and the parking lot nearing capacity at times as visitors stopped to pick up some guides, fill their water bottles, get directions to the nearest trail, or check out the pictographs on the sandstone cliffs across Utah 24 from the visitor center.

We can gripe and complain about how the politicians in Washington are managing our fiscal affairs. But we can't say we're shut out of the parks or that there's nothing to do or see in them since the ranks of rangers have been trimmed by some 1,000 seasonal positions and 900 permanent ones.

Both the Skyline Drive through Shenandoah National Park and the Blue Ridge Parkway that roams farther south down to Great Smoky Mountains National Park remain open to motorists, as do their surrounding landscapes for hiking, birding, and picnicking. The surf continues to pound the cobbled shores of Acadia, Cape Cod National Seashore's beaches will still be available for cooling off this summer, as will those at Fire Island National Seashore and the other national seashores and lakeshores in the park system.

You still can stand alongside the towering sequoias in Kings Canyon and Sequoia national parks in California, explore the tide pools of Olympic National Park in Washington state, and vanish into the mountains of North Cascades National Park, also in the Evergreen state.

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The waterfalls are still falling at Shenandoah National Park. NPS photo by John Mitchell.

Going forward, what will be interesting to see is whether this turns into a long-term scenario, and if so, how will park managers cope, and how will visitors react? What will the on-the-ground impact be?

Can the national parks somehow absorb these cuts and welcome the public with reduced services long-term? And how will the public react? Will they read stories of diminished ranger ranks, fewer interpretive programs, and harder to find campsites, and stay away?

Or will they turn out regardless to enjoy these pleasuring grounds, to take advantage of programs offered by national park friends groups and cooperating associations, and to even pause to lend a hand with collecting litter or maintaining a trail?

These are our national parks, and they’re waiting for us.

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Comments

At least the military and defense of our country are enumerated powers (even if poorly excercised) unlike the $2 Trillion in entitlement spending.


Kurt,I came upon the Traveler some years back because of my love of the National Parks and the great articles found on this web site.

Yes,I got into the political game yesterday,and was angry with myself after because it solves nothing except our personal ego's.

Any way that the Traveler can restrict some of this nitpicking on each other.

I stay away from facebook and twitter for these reasons. As a nation we face important issues but why all the ranting on this wonderful website.


Quiet please, the simple answer is, "If you wouldn't say something to somebody's face, don't write it here."

Nine times out of 10 there is a constructive, less offensive, way to write the same thing that comes out in a rant.

We're also looking into some features that let you tune out folks you don't want to listen to. That should help cope with the rants.


Yes, they are open and spectacular but a shame the way many are being managed. Friends groups, volunteers and cooperating associations are critical to park operations and Thank You to each of you. Yet, parks still need the dedicated core of rangers and resource managers to protect and reveal it to visitors. The magnificent natural areas may be able to sustain their beauty and treasures a longer while without ranger stewardship (in service to the citizens of course); however, many of the historic and cultural sites are the more vulnerable and the heaviest hit during squeezing financial times. It only takes a vandal a short while to observe that the operating routine has changed, the lights go out at a certain time and the resources are vulnerable. Historic fields grow up, structures fall down, and public artifacts are lost to individual collections and their story is not told. Reviewing the President's budget for 2014 has increases for programs and initiatives, but operations keeps taking the hits. Many of the operations can take care of some these intiatives if there are rangers there to work with the local communities. Thank you.


Some great comments here from loyalconserve, Kurt, Rick, justin, and quiet, too.

One really great challenge we face is that it's not only parks that are suffering, but much of our infrastructure, too. How many bridges on our major highways are in terrible states of repair; or water and sewer systems; and a huge host of other vital things we all depend on? It's going to be a lot of fun watching and listening to some people who have been screaming for cuts screaming even louder when their sewers back up.

What we have is a public that demands services of all kinds but is unwilling to pay for it all and a Congress that has buried its head in the mud for far too long as they've tried to keep all the special pressure groups happy enough to keep the campaign funds flowing.

Our parks are only a very tiny portion of a HUGE problem. It's going to take good sense and a lot of plain ol' COURAGE to address it all. Do we, as a nation, have what it will take?


In 2012, federal deficits were 40% of federal revenues, a truly staggering number. Regardless of political affiliation, we are looking at painful cuts in all kinds of beloved programs (military if you're a Republican, social security if you're a Democrat, National Parks if you read the NPT) if we want to give a working economy to our kids.


Here in the Smokies I can report that the hiking trails are as beautiful as they've ever been. Someone forgot to tell Mother Nature about the sequester.

In my experience while traveling thru our national parks all over the U.S., the most memorable and enjoyable activities were those where I was not part of any type of managed, ranger-led activity. I'm often amazed by how many people daily depend upon activities that require some type of human-fabricated gizmo to get their entertainment; TV, video games, wireless communicators, movies and organized sports seem to dominate our culture. I wonder about people who'll spend 2 or 3 hours in a theatre yet hesitate to devote the same amount of time to walking along a nature trail. Those of us who frequently get out there to enjoy the natural beauty so easily found in our parks know that it doesn't require a park ranger, a picnic ground or a 30 minute film presentation to have fun.

We can do just fine with 5%-10% less refinement and maintenance in our national parks. Perhaps our park managers will learn to focus on essential items and curtail some of the "foo-foo" details that really don't further our ability to enjoy the natural beauty of our parks.

Kurt is right on target with his headline: The parks are still open and still spectacular.


TriHiker is correct that we shouldn't depend upon gizmos -- but on the other hand, even for some of us who are pretty darned familiar with nature, there are always details, facts, or tips found in ranger presentations and orientation movies that can add a lot to our enjoyment and understanding of what we will see along the trails.

I don't think I've ever failed to gain something from attending such things -- even in parks in which I once worked and where some folks might consider me to be an "expert."

Visitors who are not familiar with a park will never know how much they miss when they skip opportunities to learn from someone who is part of the scenery.


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