How Would A Federal Shutdown Affect Utah Parks

At this writing, politicians are deadlocked and may not pass a stop-gap federal budget bill. We all hope they will find ways to compromise and prevent a government shutdown. But Utah national parks are making contingency plans just in case.

Zion Park posted these messages on Twitter:

In the event of a government shutdown, access to all park facilities, services, and areas will be suspended.

In the event of a government shutdown, the Zion-Mt. Carmel Hwy and Tunnel through the park will remain open to through traffic only.

We don't know details about how the parks would operate during a shutdown. Probably, visitor centers and other facilities would be closed and non-essential services would be eliminated until a new spending bill is passed. Park rangers would probably operate with reduced crews.

Would campgrounds close? At this point we don't know. Would trails close? Probably not.

If a shutdown comes, it will probably be short-lived. Congress is under great pressure to pass a spending bill and so any shutdown will probably last only a few days, at most. Hopefully...