Mount Rainier National Park to Visitors: Get Out

Posted

After traveling 3,100 miles from St. Petersburg, Fla., the Wisniewski family arrived in Ashford to find the gates of Mount Rainier National Park chained and padlocked.

Though the family knew that, if lawmakers could not pass a budget, a federal government shutdown might close the park, the reality of it still was difficult to comprehend.

“When we came here and found out, well, it’s kind of shocking,” Dora Wisniewski said on Tuesday. “But what can you do?”

Local businesses and National Park employees shared a similarly bleak, but resigned, attitude.

On Tuesday afternoon, park employees paid quick visits to park headquarters, most leaving with furlough notifications in hand.

About 190 of the park’s 224 employees have been furloughed, and the temporary cuts affect employees from seasonal manual laborers to Superintendent Randy King.

“You tell them it’s not personal, and on one level they understand that,” King said about employees’ responses to the furlough. “But on another level, it’s extremely personal. Your job is part of who you are and what your life’s about, and these employees are very committed.”

Under the shutdown’s current parameters, neither furloughed employees nor those staying on will receive pay. That financial uncertainty — particularly for low-level employees working paycheck-to-paycheck — only compounds the sense of anxiety.

Though Congress has the ability to restore pay, and has done so during past shutdowns, there is no guarantee it will.

The approximately 32 staff members who will continue working include park rangers and security guards. They are tasked with maintaining the park’s emergency response capabilities and essential facilities, including waste, water and utility systems, King said.

The skeleton crew does not, however, have the manpower to keep the park open to visitors.

As of Tuesday morning, security guards began to turn away all new visitors. On Wednesday and Thursday, employees will begin ejecting backcountry campers and guests staying at the two hotels within the parks.

Historically, visitors have flocked to the park in October — more than 2,000 a day last year, according to King — to enjoy the fall foliage. And in a cruel twist, Rainier recently was named one of the 10 best places to enjoy an autumn color tour.



King said he realizes that the thousands of people, from all over the world, who plan and pay for trips in advance, will be disappointed by the closure — but there’s nothing he can do.

Park superintendent since 2011, King described Tuesday as an emotional day

“I think I’ve gone through all the stages of grief,” he said. “Frankly, I came to work just pretty sad that we’re at this place.”

Lawmakers’ partisan squabble is unfairly punishing citizens, he said.

“(National Parks) are an American institution. They’re not a Democrat or Republican institution. They belong to all Americans. Not just today, but in perpetuity,” King said. “The idea of a shutdown is antithetical to the public purpose that these parks were established for. It’s in direct conflict with every employee who works here, and all the people who partner with the park or care about it.”

“I think it’s sad,” he said. “That’s about all there is to it.”

Kimberly Tkach, manager of the Gateway Inn, which sits only steps away from Rainier’s main entrance, on Tuesday admonished Congress for its actions.

“It’s ridiculous,” Takach said. “Where do they get off doing this?”

Asked if the closure would affect the business, which includes a convenience store, a restaurant and a small cluster of cabins, Tkach said it would, without a doubt.

“Of course it will hurt us,” she said. “We make money attending to people who come here for the park.”

Two miles down the road, Phil Freeman, owner of the Copper Creek Inn,

also voiced his anger.

“Do you see any cars coming by?” he asked. “I mean, are you kidding me? The parks are our parks, not Congress’ parks. It’s just a natural fact.”