When we were there in June we were told that the Murie Education Center would be closed the entire season.
Sleeping Bear Nat’l Park/Lakeshore - no one was manning the entrance booth where they charge entrance fees. We have a senior nat’l park pass, but it has been our observation in the past that most people need to stop and pay and are not waved through because of a pass.
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Just back from Acadia. I can’t speak to the back of the house operations, but from a visitor perspective, the level of services and facility maintenance seemed fine. We were there midweek, which seemed like a quieter time (though our campground was full). Perhaps on a busier day the cuts would be more apparent.
Not that it needs to be said here, but I’ll say it anyway. Our national parks are a treasure that should be protected, funded and maintained. 
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We visited three national parks on our last trip a couple of weeks ago. Glacier, Mt Rainier and Olympic. I have to echo what @DeeCee36 said. Didn’t notice anything significantly different as a visitor. Parks were very busy, especially Glacier.
We were at Yosemite for 3 nights recently. I did notice that the place we stayed (Yosemite Valley Lodge, in the park) was NOT very clean. I don’t know if that’s normal or not. When we’ve stayed in other national parks the lodging has been rustic, but the rooms were clean.
The cleaning of the accommodations is done by the concessionnaire, currently Aramark. It’s not done by national park employees.
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I’m just reporting what I saw. It could be that contract $s got cut, or it could be they just don’t do a good job - I have no idea. I know when we were in Yellowstone food and lodging were also contracted (Xanterra) and rooms seemed better kept.
If by not clean you mean mold in the bathtub, a couple of odd worms, and spiderwebs in the screens, it was the same way in June. The light wasn’t strong enough for me to check the carpet carefully, not that I wanted to know.
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They lost the contract at Zion. One of our cabins had mice and the lodge food was inedible. A new concessionaire was to take over Zion this past January.
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We stayed in Yellowstone in 2018 and while the room was okay (only okay) the food was unavailable or inedible. The eating choices were filthy and understaffed.
We leave for Zion in about 2 weeks. I am packing crackers…
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The little town near Zion (Springdale?) has a number of eating options if you don’t like any in the park.
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Springdale had some good restaurants.
DH is celiac, so that can be really limiting when we are away and he can’t afford to spend the whole trip sick if we aren’t careful. My Vegas cousins have rec’d Bit and Spur so we will try that. I feel like tourists owe it to gateway towns to drop some serious cash in the locals.
I don’t see how that is dropping cash on locals. I doubt there’s much benefit to locals when local business thrives. Maybe the opposite. Locals who don’t own business may prefer you to stay in the park and not venture out increasing traffic and noise pollution, etc.
More than 90 national parks reported problems between April and the end of July stemming from departures, cuts and a hiring freeze, according to internal Interior Department data. Routine tasks like cleaning and stocking the bathrooms have gone undone. Fewer rangers have given tours and lectures. Visitor centers have reduced hours. And parks have lost millions of dollars because they are unable to staff entrances and collect visitor fees.
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We are back from Zion and Bryce. It was our first time at either, so I don’t have a baseline, but things at Zion seemed okay. Trails were open and volunteers were out doing tasks. There were 2 places where the restrooms were closed at a trailhead and replaced w portapotties. The new concessionaire running the Lodge seems to be doing a great job; rooms were clean, grounds were maintained. All the shuttles in the park were running, I think the Springdale shuttle side is missing a few shuttles – maybe staffing?
Bryce clearly is struggling w massive crowds and not enough staff. The bathrooms were worse than a truck stop, garbage cans full (although there aren’t lots of them, so that might be the issue). Visitor’s center seemed understaffed but again, might just be the crowds.
I will say that at both places, the visitors were uniformly doing their best to be helpful, kind, and mindful of the rules and limits (but at Bryce I watched a woman climb over a railing to sit for a photo and DH just said “don’t look”) .
At Zion, I unfortunately had a medical emergency as we arrived and the front desk at the Lodge summoned help and a park ranger & two paramedics were there with an ambulance in under 15 minutes. Nicest , most professional guys in the world, and worth every penny DOGE thinks it can save. (I will be fine, fwiw)
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Thanks for this. We are visiting a bunch of National Parks in the next 2 weeks, including Rocky Mountain, so a) hopefully Polis’s offer is accepted and b) I expect this letter makes it incrementally more likely that the parks will remain open regardless (because the President doesn’t like being told what to do).
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I remember when there was a shutdown before.
Friends were at Yellowstone. They were told they needed to be out at a certain time and the gates were closed.
I don’t know how NPS employees are considered essential.
We will see how this is handled, and 
there is a solution
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I remember seeing people climbing over gates to get into a park during the last shutdown. They are not all (probably not even most) really hard to breach if you want. And I don’t think all of them even have real gates.
I remember the reports of Joshua trees being destroyed and when we were in Death Valley last year you could still see the damage from people during the shutdown. I don’t understand why people feel the need to go to national parks to destroy what’s there, but clearly you do need rangers.
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