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UPDATE | Estes Park, Colorado, Mayor Asks Interior To Close Rocky Mountain National Park

Hours after the mayor of the biggest gateway town to Rocky Mountain National Park on Friday wrote Interior Secretary David Bernhardt to ask him to close the park to prevent the coronavirus pandemic from sweeping over his town, the park closed to the public.
PDF icon letter_to_secretary_of_interior_re-covid-19_and_rmnp_2020-03-20.pdf

UPDATE 2 | National Park Concessionaires Seeking Federal Help In Dealing With Tourism Falloff

Concessionaires who run lodges, restaurants, inns, climbing expeditions, river trips, and other recreational operations in national parks have asked the White House to provide financial assistance to deal with the falloff in tourism to the National Park System due to the coronavirus pandemic. Their requests range from a waiver of franchise fees paid to the parks to a two-year extension of current contracts.

UPDATE 3 | National Park Service Suspending Fee Collections Across Park System

More and more parks Wednesday shut down visitor facilities ranging from restaurants to campgrounds and ending ranger-led programs in an effort to confront the spread of coronavirus, while Interior Secretary David Bernhardt encouraged visitors to "find refuge" in the park system and waived entrance fees to make it more appealing.

UPDATE | Park Superintendents Given Authority To Manage Coronavirus, Facilities Closing

Visitor facilities, hotels, museums, ranger programs, and other visitor services across the National Park System shut down Tuesday, hours after park superintendents were given the authority to do what they thought best to prevent the spread of coronavirus in the parks. Shuttle systems ground to a halt, visitor centers closed, as did some entrance stations and campgrounds, and ranger-led tours and concessionaire-provided activities were halted in many parks. Even the iconic Ahwahnee Hotel in Yosemite National Park shut down

Utah Health Officials Discouraging Visitors To Moab Area National Parks

Utah health officials on Tuesday issued an order aimed at discouraging visitors from heading to the state's southeast corner where Arches and Canyonlands national parks are located in a bid to prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus to that part of the state. While the order banned most camping on U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management lands, there had been no decision on national park campgrounds.

Traveler's View: The National Park Service's Battle With Politics And Common Sense

Over the years I've developed great respect for those who work for the National Park Service, knowing that most employees are underpaid, that living conditions for many are borderline tolerable, and yet daily they must -- and usually do -- sport a smile and openness with visitors, some who don't deserve either. But the paralysis that has afflicted the upper echelons of the agency during the novel coronavirus pandemic is baffling in its apparent lack of common sense, something that hopefully can be traced to the political winds that swirl through the Interior Department and not the judgment of career employees.

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