The ongoing partial government shutdown could delay the arrival of seasonal rangers this summer at parks such as Mesa Verde, where they lead tours of Cliff Palace/Kurt Repanshek

They answer your questions in the visitor center. They remove trees that winter downed across trails. They even lead you on tours through the Cliff Palace at Mesa Verde National Park.

"They" are seasonal rangers and park staff, thousands of people who enable national parks to function during the high season. And this summer they could be showing up later than normal, which could affect campground openings as well as who is, or isn't, available to answer your questions.

National Park Service officials in Washington are well aware of the administrative glitch the ongoing partial government shutdown has dealt them, and are working to find a way to begin the hiring process for thousands of seasonal staff for the upcoming summer season, a task seemingly blocked by the furlough of the agency's human resources staff.

"Let’s say that the campgrounds are supposed to open on the Blue Ridge Parkway around Easter. They may not open until later in May, and that’s not good for park visitors," says Phil Francis, chair of the executive council of the Coalition to Protect America's National Parks.

Like any paperwork endeavor for an agency that employs 20,000 or more staff throughout the year, roughly half of which are seasonal positions, assembling job applications is not a quick and easy matter. And it seems to be taking longer every year, even without the loss of the human resources staff, said Francis.

“Applications have to be in by a certain date. They always had to be in by late January. And then once they’re in, they have to be evaluated and scored," he explained the other day. "And then they’re put in numerical order and sent to the various parks. Now, when the parks get them, a seasonal may have applied for more than one job with the National Park Service, or they may have applied for more than one job in the federal government.

“Or maybe they applied for a job in the government and a job within a state. It becomes competitive, and so the selecting folks want to get (the applications) as soon as possible so that they know who they are and so that those people who are selected can go through the background check," added Francis. "And be processed and approved so that they can come to work when the parks need them. Any delay, in any of those steps, could impact whether or not a campground is going to open or not."

Along the Blue Ridge Parkway, where Francis was superintendent for the last eight years of his 41-year Park Service career, seasonal staff are essential to operate the 14 visitor centers. "The maintenance staff is also important," he continued, "because they have to clear the trails, they have to clear all the downed trees and wood and so forth in the campgrounds, clean the restrooms, get everything ready to open."

“Summer parks are worried now," a park superintendent told the Traveler, explaining that by the time the seasonal hiring commences, "people may have taken other jobs."

Many parks also hire seasonal firefighters, and for parks such as Big Cypress National Preserve, Everglades National Park, and Big Bend National Park, the winter months often bring the wildfires. Supposedly the importance of those positions has been realized in Washington, where Park Service staff are trying to find a way to find and provide the funds to hire those seasonals.

"The National Park Service is working on plans to address the process of seasonal recruiting and hiring in order to minimize any potential impact," Jeremy Barnum, the agency's acting assistant director for communications, said Wednesday.

Another wild card the furloughs has tossed is that the Park Service can't hire permanent employees to replace those who retired at the end of 2018 (and those who want to retire now can't because of the furloughed HR staff).

"I don’t know how many of those personnel folks or maintenance folks who do the (seasonal hiring) selections, the park rangers, chiefs of interpretation, or supervisory park rangers may have retired at the end of the last calendar year," said Francis. "A lot of people retire at the first of January. The parks are unable to fill those vacancies as well."

Barnum said the agency was working to deal with that issue, as well.

"NPS will retroactively process any subsequent retirement requests once operations resume. NPS will honor the date of request as submitted by the employee," he said. "Because those actions have not yet been processed, vacancies will not be posted as those are not allowed under the Antideficiency Act. However, any certificate of eligible applicants resulting from the advertising of a vacancy announcement which was advertised prior to the furlough due to an upcoming retirement by the incumbent will be extended to allow the hiring managers the opportunity to make selections once operations resume."

Watching the partial shutdown grind on, now into its fifth week, Francis could only shake his head at the problems it was creating with the summer busy season not that far off when it comes to preparing for it.

Tour organizations need certainty to advertise their park excursions, the staff behind recreation.gov needs to know when campgrounds will definitely open so their reservation system is synched properly to those dates, and the hospitality industry needs to know what it can advertise about the parks, he said.

“It’s going to have an impact on the parks," said Francis.

That concern was shared by John Garder at the National Parks Conservation Association. The organization's senior director of budget and appropriations, Garder said Wednesday that the delay in bringing seasonals on board in a timely fashion "is going to make it much harder for parks to be prepared for the busy season. For a number of parks, they normally would be starting the lengthy process of hiring seasonal staff, but that’s not happening right now because of the shutdown.”

“When the shutdown ends," he continued, "the Park Service will undoubtedly be overwhelmed not only with the requests to hire seasonal staff in short order, but to clean up parks, do condition assessments, and deal with the backlog of work that has built up now over a month with staff not being in parks."

For the skeleton staff currently working in the National Park System to try to provide some semblance of normalcy for visitors, the week after week after week of working with no pay and with a heavier workload due to fewer employees is wearing, fears one superintendent.

“Yeah, they’ll get paid, but they’re getting tired," he said. "There’s a risk that they’re going to resent working when everybody else is not. And there’s a risk that the people who are not getting paid are going to resent the fact that some people are.”