A park gateway community wrestles with economic and employment uncertainty as government officials offer scant information about park operations.
By Amanda Eggert MONTANA FREE PRESS
GARDINER — As federal employees faced furloughs amid congressional loggerheads over the federal budget, Yellowstone National Park employees, visitors and local businesses navigated a series of uncertainties about operations at the destination that drew more than 4.7 million visitors last year.
Some visitors Montana Free Press spoke with Wednesday near the park’s only year-round entrance were largely unaware that the federal government shutdown had impacted Park Service operations. Others made last-minute travel changes in anticipation of closed entrances thwarting years-long dreams of visiting Yellowstone, or encountered visitor centers that had been bolted shut.
John Berku, who was visiting Yellowstone from Israel as part of a larger tour of United States national parks, had not heard of the federal government shutdown.
“We were surprised that at the entrance they didn’t check our tickets,” said Berku, who had spent the previous two days inside Yellowstone on the heels of a trip to Glacier National Park.
Kate and Ryan Fjell of Boonville, Missouri, said they made a “mad dash” through park highlights immediately after flying into Bozeman on Tuesday in case their entrance was blocked Wednesday.
The federal government shut down at 12:01 a.m. Wednesday as Senate Democrats refused to cave on their push to fund health care subsidies. The chamber adjourned later that day after a failed vote earlier on a budget deal, and it’s unclear what might break the logjam.
Without a budget agreement, 9,296 of the park agency’s 14,500 employees were expected to be furloughed, according to a document from the Department of the Interior. The plan said that “park roads, lookouts, trails, and open-air memorials will generally remain accessible to visitors.” Operators who run the park’s hotels and other facilities could also stay open, according to the Interior Department’s plan.
Previous park shutdowns — Yellowstone’s gates remained open, but staffing was winnowed down to a skeleton crew during the 34-day shutdown that straddled the 2018-2019 winter — have helped Cary McGary, who owns In Our Nature Guiding Services, prepare herself and her clients, to the extent she can.
McGary told Montana Free Press that without readily accessible information about park operations, she drove clients who had booked a wildlife viewing tour with her months in advance to the park entrance early Wednesday morning with a “let’s hope it’s open” attitude.
She noted that people who appeared to be Park Service employees were present at a heavily trafficked bear jam and a bison jam to help keep visitors and wildlife safe, but she doesn’t know if they’ll be there later this week.
A document emailed to commercial-use authorization permit holders from the National Park Service and provided to MTFP on Wednesday showed that guides would need to sign a conditional approval to remain operating in the park during the shutdown in areas deemed accessible. Among other terms, the document directs impacted businesses to acknowledge that park-provided visitor services would be unavailable and emergency and rescue services would be limited during the “lapse in appropriations.”
Past shutdowns, McGary said, have demonstrated some of the resource and health risks that can accompany an inadequately staffed national park that can draw hundreds of thousands of visitors a month even in shoulder seasons. She wonders if Yellowstone will plow the road if a snowstorm comes through, if trash cans will be emptied and if toilets will be serviced.
“I would encourage visitors to plan to be much more self-sufficient in regard to sanitation and trash,” she said. “I am anticipating needing to bring my own hand sanitizer and toilet paper.”
She added that overfilled pit toilets can become a natural resource issue when visitors start defecating outside.
Montana Wildlife Federation Frank Szollosi wrote in an emailed statement to MTFP that inadequate garbage management could get people and bears into trouble.
“If those garbage cans overflow again, this time when bears are in hyperphagia rather than hibernating, we could see some serious problems,” Szollosi said.
MTFP called Yellowstone’s public affairs line for Yellowstone-specific operations plan, but did not receive a call back by press time Thursday morning. A spokesperson for Xanterra, a private company that manages hospitality businesses inside the park boundaries, confirmed that the hotels, restaurants and gift shops — and bathrooms — it manages are open.
“We don’t know how long this is going to go on. We don’t know how service may change within the National Park Service. We’re clearly taking our lead from them,” said Todd Walton, adding that Xanterra is working to be “the best partner we can.”
In lieu of a more detailed plan, Kody Marr with Parks’ Fly Shop in Gardiner has been checking the National Park Service website to reference the status of the road leading into the park from the North Entrance. When people call the shop inquiring about the park’s status, he tells them the website shows entrance roads open and people have been entering the park.
“That uncertainty is tough,” he said. “It would have been nice to have more of a PSA.”
Michelle Uberuaga, the Yellowstone senior program manager for the National Park Conservation Association, described the shutdown as the latest development in a string of hardships facing NPS workers.
“Somebody yesterday said to me, ‘I don’t know if today is going to be my last day wearing the green and gray,’” she said in a Wednesday afternoon conversation. “It’s just really heavy for people who have spent their entire career in public service, who really care about this place.”
Uberauga added that the uncertainty comes amid a particularly difficult stretch of months for NPS employees, who’ve faced a 24% personnel reduction due to the Trump administration’s work to shrink the federal workforce, a hiring freeze that remains in place, and the looming threat of “mass terminations coming.”
“I think this administration is undervaluing these roles, and that’s really hard. The wildlife, the cultural resources, the geysers — these are what make Yellowstone incredibly special, and there are staff whose jobs are taking care of those resources,” she said. “Yellowstone is millions of acres. It’s a very large national park, and every single person that works for Yellowstone is critical to ensuring that the visitor experience is not only positive, but safe.”
McGary said she’s worried about people harassing wildlife, which can be a safety concern for both animals and visitors. Bison goring incidents are unfortunately common in the park; earlier this year a park visitor received emergency medical treatment after he encountered a bear in the park on a backcountry camping trip.
McGary encouraged NPS employees, many of whom she said live with tight financial margins, not to refrain from asking community members for help — or accepting it.
“There’s no shame in being part of the community’s circle where we help each other out,” McGary said. “Whether they’re deemed essential or not, they’re still under a lot of stress and uncertainty and I hope that Congress can reach a decision soon.”
