Visitors and advocates lament partial openings of national parks during shutdown

By Brian Todd, CNN

Great Falls, Virginia (CNN) — Several visitors just couldn’t wait for the weekend to get into Great Falls Park in northern Virginia.

They drove up to the park’s main gate on Friday morning, and, seeing a closed entrance and three layers of barricades, parked illegally along the narrow road leading to the park. Many of them moved over and around the barricades to enter the park on foot.

America’s national parks – including this small piece of federal land outside Washington, DC – will stay partially open during the government shutdown that began Wednesday, according to the Department of the Interior, leading to limited entrances, amenities and staffing. While it’s not illegal to access parks on foot during the shutdown, the scene at Great Falls illustrates park advocates’ safety concerns and visitors’ frustrations.

“We are about to head into a very beautiful weekend. You better believe I’m extremely nervous,” Ed Stierli, Mid-Atlantic senior regional director for the National Parks Conservation Association, told CNN in a phone call Friday.

Stierli is particularly concerned with the situation at Great Falls, where trails and picturesque cliffsides along the Potomac River attract many visitors, especially with this weekend’s pleasant weather.

“We are encouraging people not to go to the parks right now,” Stierli said. “Now is not the time to climb over closed gates and risk your safety. It’s not good for the park and it’s not good for visitors.”

During the shutdown – which has no end in sight – park roads, trails and open-air memorials will generally remain accessible, but many visitors’ centers will be closed. And the furlough of more than 9,000 National Park Service employees will create a dearth of park rangers to ensure safety and guide visitors.

Stierli is worried that without park rangers at Great Falls to monitor visitors, many will put themselves in danger by climbing on rock formations atop cliffs over the river, many just a few feet away from hiking trails.

“This is a park that has one of the most dangerous stretches of the Potomac River,” Stierli said. “The currents there are deadly.”

Because of the lack of staff and visitor centers, Stierli said, the National Parks Conservation Association thinks that national parks should be completely closed during the shutdown. Earlier this week, other park advocacy groups such as the Coalition to Protect America’s National Parks and the Association of National Park Rangers criticized the decision to keep the parks partially open, calling it “dangerous” and “irresponsible.” The Association of National Park Rangers warned of an increased risk of vandalism and poaching.

Stierli said during the last major government shutdown, from December 2018 to January 2019, an arrowhead on display at an entrance to Shenandoah National Park was stolen.

Theresa Pierno, president and CEO of the NPCA, said in a statement that during that same shutdown, “Parks were left open without enough staff. Landmarks were graffitied, artifacts stolen, Joshua Trees destroyed, fragile landscapes damaged by illegal off-roading, wildlife poached, and trash and human waste overflowed.”

Frustrated hikers and out-of-state visitors

Many visitors to national parks in the Washington, DC, region on Friday were just irked with the lack of services and poor communication.

CNN went to three parks in the DC region: Great Falls Park and Manassas National Battlefield Park in Virginia, as well as Greenbelt Park in Maryland. At all three, visitors’ centers were closed, bathrooms were inaccessible and very few employees were visible.

“I think it’s a little confusing and they should be more clear on entries and hours, and if we’re even allowed to come in,” said Linda Mamoud, a medical student from Herndon, Virginia, who was hiking at Great Falls.

Mamoud said when she drove up to the barricades on Friday and saw the entrance closed, “I went on to Reddit threads and people said to just park at River Bend Park and then walk 40 minutes here on a different trail.” She said the websites for Great Falls and the Park Service didn’t give specifics on how to access the park on foot.

Steve Hildreth, 84, traveled from Idaho Falls, Idaho, to visit his son in northern Virginia and was taken aback when they couldn’t get into the visitors’ center at Manassas National Battlefield Park.

“It’s a disappointment, after being here for the first time and not being able to see it,” he said. Hildreth’s wife, Lee, said “It’s extremely disappointing, because this is probably the only time I’ll get to DC.”

Another visitor to Manassas said he had hoped to use the visitors’ center as a guide to navigate the park and learn where the soldiers were positioned during the Civil War battles there but gave up and left when he saw the closed visitors’ center.

Three adults among a family of 15 who were camping in Greenbelt Park – who didn’t want to give their names – said they noticed that Park Police officers, who they said are often diligent about roving around the park and checking on campers’ safety, were not patrolling on Thursday and Friday. “Some of us have a small concern” about safety, one said.

CNN has reached out to the National Park Service regarding these concerns.

Wendy, a hiker in Great Falls Park who only wanted to give her first name, said she had to walk into the park on Friday, two miles from where she would normally enter. A furloughed government employee, she summed up the exasperation of many park visitors who spoke to CNN.

“It’s frustrating. I mean, I pay to be a National Park member,” she said. “I mean, it’s supposed to be for all of us.”

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