I have a lengthy list of experiences and places in the back of beyond that I write about for my Wild About Utah segments. But right now, all of those ideas are on the backburner.
I spent President’s Day weekend in Zion National Park — seeking mid-winter sunshine and satisfying a much-needed red rock fix. There was a time when winter months in Zion felt like an off-season experience. Not anymore. The park is packed year-round. The first day we were there, despite the crowds, staff at four entrance booths were making efficient work of admitting stacks of vehicles into the park.
I mistakenly followed a car through the lane intended for employee entrance into the park and was promptly yelled at by an understandably frustrated park ranger. It was an honest mistake. I felt the lane was not well-marked and that he overreacted a bit. But thinking back, I recognize how much stress he must have been under knowing federal cuts to the National Park Service (NPS) were looming and how frustrating it must be to respond, day after day, to an endless stream of boneheads like me, who attempted to enter the park through the wrong gate.
As we headed into Zion Canyon, it was obvious that park rangers and staff who worked hard to manage crowds were simply overmatched. 2024 set a record with 332 million national park visits.
Our next day in the park was also the first day of federal cuts to the National Park Service workforce. Only one entrance booth was open and the town of Springdale was gridlocked by a half mile-long chain of vehicles waiting to enter. It was sobering to have a front row seat on what the federal cuts meant for Zion National Park on day one — and our view was just a surface glace at how entrance to the park was impacted. A partial list of what we couldn’t see is the impact these cuts will have on trail and facility maintenance, education outreach, scientific research, crowd management, and protections of fragile resources.
The National Park service employs roughly 20,000 people. About 1,000 lost their jobs in February — about 5% of the NPS workforce. About 6,000 Bureau of Land Management and Forest Service employes also were terminated. These are real people. The impacts are catastrophic both individually and collectively. The courts recently ruled that these terminations were illegal and a 45-day stay on all USDA firings was ordered. We don’t know how that will shake out yet.
If we look at the NPS strictly through an economic lens, in 2023 the NPS budget was about $3.4 billion, and it is estimated that the NPS generates over $55.6 billion for the economy. That’s a darn-good bang for the buck. I believe everyone is for eliminating waste in government, but these cuts to dedicated, boots-on-the-ground, rangers, staff, and crews are not cutting fat, they cut to the bone.
Our sacred lands are not merely a matter of economics. In 1839 Ralph Waldo Emerson profoundly wrote:
"Here came the other night an Aurora so wonderful a curtain of red & blue & silver glory that in any other nation it would have moved the awe and words of men … with the profoundest sentiments of religion and love, & we all saw it with cold, arithmetical eyes, we knew how many colours shone, how many degrees it extended, how many hours it lasted, and of this heavenly flower we beheld nothing more."
The value of our public lands and national parks are not quantifiable on a spreadsheet.
This segment is a shout-out to all the public servants working on public lands and in national parks who have dedicated their lives and careers to preserving and protecting our national treasures and who make America a better place, one trail at a time. I tip my hat to you.
I am Eric Newell and I am rooting for the people with calloused hands and mud on their boots.
