Do the national parks and their concessionaires have enough staff? Some visitors to the North Rim of Grand Canyon National Park wonder./Kurt Repanshek file
It's early in the summer vacation season, having just passed the Memorial Day Weekend. With visitation to the National Park System strong and growing, are the parks and their concessionaires ready for it?
Sparking that question was an email from Lisa in Billings, Montana, who recounted her experience from a visit to the North Rim of Grand Canyon National Park on May 20, five days after the rim opened for the summer.
"I had not been there since 2002 and was excited to show my friend the lovely 100+ year old lodge and surrounding trails. We arrived at 7:30 a.m., no ranger at the gate but we had our Annual Park Pass so we were good to go!," she wrote. "We went straight to the lodge area to use the bathroom facilities before heading on our hike. The ladies' restroom was filthy. And not as if there have been a ton of people using the facilities and no one has had a chance to empty the garbage. I mean, dirty toilets, counters, floors. Like it hadn't been cleaned since the season before. Mind you we were there on May 20th; the park opened (the North Rim) for the season May 15. We then left and hiked the Widforss Trail, which was awesome!
"My friend and I returned to the lodge area and hiked to Angel Point. The trail was well maintained and busy. We took a couple side trails that are paved and lead to the little observation point and lodge, but we were shocked to see how much the trail was damaged, in disrepair and quite unsafe,especially for folks who might be handicapped in any way," she aded. "There were large holes and broken pieces of blacktop strewn about the trail. We proceeded to go get some lunch at the deli as the lodge restaurant was not serving breakfast or lunch. Unfortunately, half of the items listed on the menu were not available but not to worry, we did not go hungry! We took our to-go lunch into the large room by the dinning hall in the lodge and sat at tables set up for folks. All the tables were dirty, dried ketchup, and sticky. Garbage cans overflowing...at 12 noon. There was no one there wiping tables or managing the area."
Tell us, travelers, have you had similar experiences in the national parks so far this year, or was Lisa's an outlier?
Comments
Ahhh, yes, if only I could be so young and naive again, good times, good times. Well, Levi, those days really weren't that good for me and, unless you have family money, they might not really be that good for any family you might have in another twenty years.
Look, I admire your idealism. In a few places, park employees really are "Paid in Sunsets" and, you're partially right, many staff certainly do not provide service at a 1-2 stars level. I certainly never did and luckily never needed even what I was paid. But, the fact is that almost all staff members really do need their paychecks and what the previous commenter claimed is true; most of those staff truly are receiving only 1-2 star equivalent compensation.
And, as that previous commenter also indicated, most park facilities truly are run by greedy corporate concessionaires and, although there are energetic young kids like yourself doing a good job, those greedy concessionaires actually do fill out the rest of their workforce needs with unskilled, low wage, seasonal employees.
I can't vouch for the stories about Zion concessionaires recruiting seasonal temps at homeless shelters in Vegas; but, those stories have been around for a long time and that has been done in other places. As for stories about concessionaires using binding indentured servitude type contracts, especially for foreign workers, paying those workers next to nothing, and pocketing the profits off multimillion dollar politically connected sweetheart contracts; I can sure vouch for those stories.
I can also attest to park contractors, not just concessionaires, working their employees far more than what should be a full workweek under the conditions and doing so solely to reduce employee numbers for the purpose of limiting housing and transportation costs. I remember calling for medical assistance for a five foot tall, roughly seventy pound, teenage concessions worker from Slovakia, exhausted to the point of being unsteady and unable to stand and weeping uncontrollably, who was fired by the concessionaire with a housing bill, no way to get home, and no working rights in the US outside the park when, after a near eighty hour workweek, she couldn't continue to adequately bus tables by herself.