What happens at Yosemite, other national parks with government shutdown coming?
UPDATE: Yosemite and other national parks will remain partially open with skeleton crews during the government shutdown, according to a National Park Service contingency plan released Tuesday evening.
Ahead of the looming government funding deadline, the National Parks Conservation Association was urging all national parks to be closed completely rather than left open with skeleton crews.
It’s unclear how the all-but-certain government shutdown Wednesday will impact public access to national parks, which in Central California includes Yosemite, Sequoia and Kings Canyon.
Officials from the three parks did not immediately respond to requests for comment from The Fresno Bee. And the park’s websites did not say anything about the possibility that the parks might close.
In a 2018 shutdown, the Trump administration required parks to stay open with very limited staff, leaving the facilities vulnerable to vandalism.
During that shutdown, from Dec. 22-Jan. 25, staff were furloughed and facilities closed, but mostly unsupervised visitors were still allowed to enter. As a result, the parks suffered vandalism that took years to correct. In some cases, the damage was irreversible.
“The impacts were disastrous,” Theresa Pierno, president and CEO for NPCA, said in a statement.
Cases of chopped-down Joshua trees, which can be more than a century old, were reported at Joshua Tree National Park. At Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks, human waste and trash issues reached levels so problematic that the parks were eventually forced to close.
Prehistoric petroglyphs were vandalized and irreparably damaged at Big Bend National Park. At Death Valley National Park, campgrounds were kept open, but restrooms closed, leading to sanitation issues. Plus, many parks suffered damage to infrastructure from illegal off-roading, according to the release.
In the event of a shutdown, the National Park Service usually operates off of a contingency plan. But no contingency was in place as of Sept. 29, and the Park Service still does not know who will be able to staff the parks, NPCA said.
The NPCA said in its release that it would be a mistake to “force park staff to swing the gates open and walk away, as doing so would go against their duties and the Park Service’s mission.”
The last directive under the Biden administration called for gates to be locked, visitor centers to be closed and park rangers to be furloughed. It is unclear if the Trump administration will call for those updates to be reversed.
The White House’s Office of Management and Budget sent a memo last Wednesday to federal agencies instructing departments to identify projects, programs and activities where funding will lapse on Oct. 1 if Congress fails to meet the deadline for the new fiscal year and no alternative funding is available.
For such initiatives, agencies were directed to submit Reduction in Force plans that would permanently eliminate jobs in programs “not consistent with President Donald Trump’s priorities” in the case of a shutdown. Now, it is unclear if Trump will call for those updates to be reversed.
“We remain hopeful that Democrats in Congress will not trigger a shutdown and the steps outlined above will not be necessary,” OMB wrote in the memo.
The shutdown comes at a time when National Parks already face a staffing crisis and heavy budget cuts. Since January, the National Park Service has lost at least 24% of its permanent staff, NPCA says.
“Any further staffing cuts to the Park Service would be devastating for our parks.,” NPCA said in the release.
When the government shut down in 2013, the National Park Service estimated a nationwide loss in visitor spending of more than $500 million.
Lawmakers had until this Wednesday midnight to agree on a spending plan for the new fiscal year or a shutdown will take place.
“The Park Service as we know it today will be decimated, and as a result the national parks themselves will be gutted,” Pierno said in a statement. “We can’t let this happen. If ever there was a time for Americans to speak up and tell lawmakers to protect our national parks, it’s now.”
This story was originally published September 30, 2025 at 5:04 PM with the headline "What happens at Yosemite, other national parks with government shutdown coming?."