Kevin Schoonhoven was determined to go camping in Joshua Tree National Park over the weekend. The 34-year-old birder from Orange County had reservations at the park’s Black Rock Campground for Saturday night, and on Oct. 1 — the day the federal government shut down — he received an email from the online reservation platform Recreation.gov reassuring him that his reservation would not be impacted.
The next day, he received an email titled “A Closure Affects Your Reservation” that said the opposite. His reservation — and all others between Oct. 2 and Oct. 15 — had been canceled. “The experience and well-being of visitors is our top priority, and we apologize for any inconvenience due to this location closure,” states the email, which Schoonhoven shared with SFGATE. “We appreciate your understanding.”
Schoonhoven didn’t really understand, though. All of the messaging from the Department of the Interior and the National Park Service indicated that campgrounds were remaining open. But the abrupt nature of the shutdown, which happened after the Senate did not pass a bill to fund the government, has led to confusion over what is open and whether national parks can or should be visited.
Advertisement
Article continues below this ad
The uncertainty has been especially unsettling in Joshua Tree, which is entering its busiest time of year as the desert weather cools off. The park was hit especially hard during the last government shutdown: Over 35 days in 2018 and 2019, vandals defaced the park’s rocks with graffiti, went off-roading in ecologically sensitive areas and even chopped down beloved Joshua trees.
Park advocates refer to those events as “atrocities” and say the damage could take hundreds of years to reverse. It happened because the park was left open with minimal staffing, they say, which raises an important question: What will be done during this shutdown to prevent the same things from happening again?
Park officials did not respond to an email from SFGATE posing that question, nor did representatives from Recreation.gov. But in speaking with recent visitors, local nonprofit leaders and business owners in the region, a picture of how the Park Service and its partners plan to safeguard Joshua Tree’s resources during the shutdown has come into view.
Advertisement
Article continues below this ad
BEST OF SFGATE
History | Why a wealthy banker blasted a huge hole in a Bay Area cliff
Local | There’s a mansion hidden directly under the Bay Bridge
Culture | Inside the Bay Area’s cult-like obsession with Beanie Babies
Local | The world’s last lost tourist thought Maine was San Francisco
Get SFGATE’s top stories sent to your inbox by signing up for The Daily newsletter here.
All eyes on Joshua Tree National Park
For people like Schoonhoven, who returns to Joshua Tree time and again to camp and birdwatch, seeing firsthand what the park is like right now has become a priority. So rather than giving up when he got the cancellation email, Schoonhoven turned to the internet for more information.
The park’s website had some confusing guidance: “Campgrounds will remain open as long as existing occupants are present, along with the restrooms and utility systems essential to make the site safe,” the website reads. “For campsite reservations already in the Recreation.gov system and paid for, campers will be allowed to access their campsite. No new campsite reservations can be made during closure.”
Advertisement
Article continues below this ad
When Schoonhoven consulted Reddit, he learned that some people with camping reservations in Joshua Tree were also getting cancellation emails — and some were not. There would be no straight answer, it seemed. He started packing.
“I figured I’d just chance it,” Schoonhoven said. “Worst case scenario, I either find a different spot or stay on [Bureau of Land Management] land, or just drive back home.”
He arrived around 3 p.m. Saturday and was surprised to find the Black Rock Nature Center open. “I talked to the employee there, and she said that the campsites are all first come, first served right now,” he said. She also told him that everyone had been refunded, he said, and then instructed him to go to the campsite he had booked. “If somebody’s at that site, just pick a different one,” he said she told him.
Advertisement
Article continues below this ad
When he got to the 99-site campground in the northwest corner of the park, he found it to be only about 15% to 20% full. “It was weird how empty it was,” Schoonhoven said. “But it makes sense because everybody got an email saying that the reservation was canceled.”
Although Joshua Tree officials haven’t publicized anything about first-come, first-served campgrounds, the Joshua Tree National Park Association sent out an email on Oct. 3 backing up the information Schoonhoven received.
“The reservation system for campgrounds … has canceled all campground reservations and issued refunds accordingly,” the organization’s executive director, Jacqueline Guevara, wrote in the email, which SFGATE obtained from a local business owner. “This means that while campgrounds are open, they are first-come, first-served.”
Advertisement
Article continues below this ad
On Saturday evening, Schoonhoven was surprised when a ranger came by to check on the guests at Black Rock Campground. The next morning, it happened again. “Everybody that was there was being super respectful,” he said. “Basically it seemed like business as normal, except it was very empty.”
How the park can survive the shutdown
That guests are interacting with rangers bodes well, advocates say, for how the shutdown may be different for Joshua Tree this time around. But visitors should also keep in mind that the Park Service was already struggling when the shutdown began, said Krystian Lahage, the public policy officer for the Mojave Desert Land Trust.
The Trump administration’s initiatives to reduce the size of the federal government have resulted in the departure of 24% of the Park Service’s permanent staff, and in May, the passage of Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill” cut $267 million in Park Service funding that had been previously allocated for staffing.
Advertisement
Article continues below this ad
“So when you add in a shutdown that’s now furloughing additional members of that already stretched thin team, there’s more gaps in things like the visitor experience,” Lahage told SFGATE.
He acknowledges that this time around, maintenance staff and volunteers will be around to take care of bathrooms and collect trash, which wasn’t the case in 2018 and 2019. But he also points out that law enforcement and search and rescue teams were present during that shutdown — as they are now — and the park still sustained damage.
“Those folks got overwhelmed pretty quickly,” he said. “And so what we’re mostly concerned about is that with even more thin staffing, what’s the ability of management to balance the safety and enjoyable experience of our visitors along with the protection of sensitive habitat?”
Advertisement
Article continues below this ad
The land trust hasn’t gone so far as to encourage the park officials to close the gates, but that could change. During the last shutdown, after the vandalism got out of hand, the land trust did recommend a full closure, Lahage said. For now, its staff will be visiting the park regularly, observing what happens and checking in with the community.
Another nonprofit, the National Parks Conservation Association, has joined more than 40 retired superintendents and taken the opposite stance. They’re urging officials to close national parks to protect the resources, according to the nonprofit’s California Desert program manager Chance Wilcox, although they know it would be tough on the economies of gateway communities.
“It’s what’s best for the Park Service and it’s best for these landscapes,” Wilcox said, “but we also, hand in hand with that, are encouraging Congress to really find a way to meet in the middle.”
Wilcox has already made stops over the past several days at a couple of the park’s visitor centers to see how things are going. He found them busy and largely staffed by volunteers, he said, which is “not ideal in any way, shape or form.”
Advertisement
Article continues below this ad
The Joshua Tree National Park Association has been stepping in to help, according to both Wilcox and Lahage, which has some short-term benefits. For example, volunteers can educate visitors on desert safety issues like bringing enough water and being aware of the potential for flash floods. But the use of volunteers also makes both advocates uncomfortable.
“I don’t think that we should be relying on volunteers to staff our national parks,” Wilcox said. “It sends the wrong message — especially in the face of potential mass firings — that we don’t need staff in parks.”
As desert temperatures cool off, park visitation ramps up. But for now, the park cannot collect fees for entrance or camping, Wilcox lamented. Still more problematic is that previously collected fees are being used to run the park, he said, even as no new money is coming in. “Fees are supposed to go to visitor experiences and for improvements, things like that,” he said. “They shouldn’t be used for actual day-to-day operations.”
A gateway business makes a sacrifice
For Joshua Tree and the rest of the national park system, a shutdown offers no upside. It’s bad for employees, bad for visitors, bad for park resources and bad for gateway businesses. Although most businesses have kept their doors open, one conscientious local adventure company, Red Jeep Tours, has voluntarily ceased running tours into the park.
Advertisement
Article continues below this ad
“I’m making the decision not to right now,” owner Kimberly Renee said, “because during the last government shutdown, there were so many problems in the park with overflowing trash, bathrooms overflowing with human waste and people vandalizing, that I just don’t feel like it’s a good experience for our guests.”
Beyond the conditions of the park being suboptimal during government shutdowns, Renee also wants to do right by the park employees. “I don’t want to add to the burden that the limited staff is already under,” she said.
More National Parks
— Hundreds illegally camped near Lake Mead forced out
— A California national park has a serious theft problem
— Historians hurriedly photograph national park signs at risk of removal
— Deadly fungus found at two national parks in Pacific Northwest
We love national parks just as much as you do, so we have a newsletter that covers them from top to bottom. Sign up here.