Agreement Too Late For Parks Visitors Budget Stalemate Shut Down Olympics, Rainier, Cascades

It wasn’t easy, rangers say, closing the gates of a national park and turning away weekend visitors.

“This goes against what we’re all about,” Olympic National Park spokeswoman Barb Maynes said. “We’re having to shut down the park and keep people out.”

A weeklong federal budget standoff forced the closure Friday of all national parks, including Olympic, Mount Rainier and North Cascades parks in Washington.

The standoff ended Sunday night when the Republican-led Congress rushed to enact legislation ending a partial shutdown of the government after the White House committed to speedy negotiations to balance the budget in seven years. The agreement allowed all federal employees to return to work today.

Although thousands of “non-essential” federal workers in Washington state remained home for much of the week because of the shutdown, closing the park system - arguably most Americans’ favorite part of government - garnered much of the attention.

Only skeleton crews needed for safety, essential maintenance - and to keep visitors out - remained on duty at the parks. All but about 35 of the 179 Olympic National Park employees had been furloughed, while 16 of the approximately 80 Mount Rainier workers remained on the job.

“We’ve had about 20 cars turned away in the past two days,” Ranger Jim Traub, at Lake Ozette in the lympic National Park, said Saturday. “So far, people have been understanding. Frustrated, but understanding.”

Telling people to leave is no fun, Traub said.

“I don’t think people back in Washington (D.C.) think about he person who has been turned away from backpacking in the Olympics because of the budget,” Traub said. “I had to turn a guy away who drove all the way from Seattle to visit Lake Ozette. I don’t know that anyone back there (Washington, D.C.) realizes what that means.”

Visitors were prohibited from the parks due to liability reasons and because of the lack of services and personnel to cover any type of emergencies.

At Mount Rainier, District Ranger Randy Brooks busied himself ousting the lasts of the hikers, campers and climbers in the first closure in the park’s 96-year history.

Brooks said he had to turn away people who have driven from all over the country, and one visitor who had traveled from Russia.

This is normally the slowest time of year for the parks. Enough snow has fallen to close State Route 20 through North Cascades National Park and Chinook Pass and Washington 706 at Mount Rainier, but not enough to open ski and snowshoe areas at Mount Rainier and Olympic.

But the closure still was painful for concessionaires and their employees who run park restaurants, shops and lodging.

Mount Rainier Guest Services, which operates the park’s hotel, restaurant, cafeterias and gift shops, lost big money, said Bette Leybold, the company’s controller. She would not venture an estimate.

“We’ve had to close everything and cancel all of our reservations,” Leybold said. “We’re holding all our food products, waiting to see if we’re open or not.”

The 58-unit Kalaloch Lodge, popular year-round for its majestic beaches, fronts U.S. 101 about 70 miles north of Aberdeen. Nevertheless, because it is on a narrow strip of Olympic National Park land along the Pacific coast, it has had to close. Likewise, the Lake Crescent Lodge, about 20 miles west of Port Angeles, was shut.

Brad Barker, Kalaloch Lodge general manager, said all but a few of its 75 employees were sent home Friday.

The Lake Quinault Lodge, operated by the same concessionaire, Aramark, but on U.S. Forest Service land, was able to stay open because that federal agency is funded differently and had its budget approved last month. Some Kalaloch guests were relocated there at a substantial discount, Barker said.

“We wanted to make things as easy as we could for those who were affected by this,” he said. “We didn’t want to be perceived as being part of the problem.”