The Madison River near West Yellowstone, Montana, was calm and peaceful at the height of the partial government shutdown/Angie Rayborn

During the recent Martin Luther King, Jr., holiday weekend, I spent one day with friends cross-country skiing down the Riverside Trail from West Yellowstone, Montana, into Yellowstone National Park. Despite the partial government shutdown, the park was open and snowmobiles were throttling their way towards Old Faithful, yet we had chosen an afternoon ski to enjoy the snow, the solitude, and the rippling Madison River with its small flotilla of Barrow’s goldeneyes amid some Canada geese.

Barring further revelations, most of the National Park System, though understaffed due to the vast majority of the National Park Service staff being furloughed, reflected similar calm and were respectfully embraced by those who ventured into parks for their beauty.

Joshua Tree and Death Valley national parks were exceptions, with the most egregious behavior seen in Joshua Tree. There, park Superintendent David Smith told me, at least two Joshua trees had been felled by scofflaws who viewed the 1,235-square-mile park, with just eight law enforcement rangers to monitor all that expanse, as their private playground. Some drove their off-road vehicles into the pristine Mojave desert, others cut padlocks off gates barring access, and many illegally camped out in pullouts as the front-country campgrounds were closed due to the overwhelming garbage and human waste. (Editor's note: Joshua Tree National Park officials said February 1 that one of the two trees had actually been cut down prior to the shutdown).

Traveler’s coverage of the Joshua Tree vandalism was widely picked up by other media — the New York Times, the Washington Post, CNN, Gizmodo, Popular Science and many others — as National Park Service officials in Washington, D.C., quickly told Smith not to agree to any more interviews. It’s unfortunate both that the bulk of the Park Service workforce was furloughed, leaving the parks under the watchful, but vastly overtaxed, eyes of skeleton crews, and that those on the ground who manage the parks were prevented from describing what was going on. Astonishingly, park superintendents were among those NPS employees deemed unessential during the shutdown.

Going forward, we’ll be watching to see what more, if any, damage to natural resources and facilities turns up in the parks, and how quickly true normalcy is returned to the National Park System. We’ll also be curious to learn whether those employees left for five weeks without paychecks will decide that private sector jobs are more secure, if not set in as beautiful surroundings.

Of course, we’ll continue to explore the wonders and uniqueness of the park system in the weeks and months ahead. We hope you enjoyed Kim O’Connell’s latest article, on unique architecture across the National Park System. Contributing photographer Rebecca Latson has been in Olympic National Park, and we can’t wait to see what images of that incredible setting she returns home with.

We’re also going to be taking a look at the recovery of park units that suffered extensive wildfires last fall, and, of course, we’ll be pointing to some great destinations for your spring outings. There never is a down season in the parks, and there’s always another adventure awaiting park travelers.        

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