Yes, it's definitely worth seeing, but it's also pretty remote. My understanding is that the concessions are run by contracts, so hotels and restaurants should be open. |
Ehh, this is at the bottom of my list of things to worry about. So many other places to go. |
There is an airport 30 minutes from the West Glacier entrance. There are multiple daily flights there from Salt Lake City, Denver and Minneapolis, and summer time flights also from Chicago and New York. If you read the linked article from the OP, there are a lot of support jobs that are seasonal NPS staff, that have not been exempted yet. You may also have concessionaires dropping out because they are unsure of payment or performance by NPS. Would you risk bringing on a bunch of employees and buying hundreds of thousands of dollars of supplies when "Big Balls" may go into the Treasury system and decide your payment should be deleted? |
I think all parks will be open..it's just that they'll no longer have reservation systems. They will cause massive traffic jams in serene parks because the number of parking spaces is limited. People are going to get so frustrated they're immediately going to park all over the place in grass and places they shouldn't be, ruining nature. There will be no one to take trash, so expect garbage piles strewn everywhere. And good luck using a toilet. Expect a filthy mess with zero toilet paper. Have fun brining kids. You better collect some leaves on the ground to wipe your behinds with. US parks are about to become a landfill of trash and human waste everywhere. |
I thought a skull emoji means "laughing so hard I'm dying". |
We paid $30,000 last year for 4 of us to spend a week seeing Yellowstone with our every need attended to: expert guides, input from the researchers who study the animals there, high powered binoculars and scopes, retrofitted tour vans with charging ports and the ability to pop their tops for roadside photo taking opportunities, welcome gifts, daily hotel breakfasts and picnic lunches in the park with appetizers and desserts, served on tablecloths with actual dinner plates and silverware, access to cold beverages and snacks at all times, all the nicest accommodations in the area, our luggage magically appearing in each new hotel room without our having to lift a finger, multiple course dinners, alcohol included, transportation to and from airports. Because we didn’t have to plan, organize, study maps, spend time behind the wheel, pack lunches or find restaurants or check into hotels ourselves, and we had experts guiding us, we were able to maximize our time viewing wildlife and thermal features. We saw so much more than if we had taken the trip on the cheap. |
There’s an age divide to how it’s used. |
People were making fun of me on this forum when I said I was crossing off as a travel options this season to a national park. Yup, this is why!
In fact, even a couple years ago? I made sure to do Glacier, Yosemite, we did Joshua Tree and a couple others that we really wanted to see that are popular because in a short time, it's not going to look like it always has. The beauty will be going away. It's partly climate change and partly politics. Things change - you really can't take for granted in these times when tech is moving so fast, there are so many people in the world and travel has become so accessible to expect the sights will remain as they have in the next 10 yrs. They will look totally different. We did Venice, Miami, New Orleans - I'm about to go see AK next. Looking at safari in Africa. I want to go to places not like Chicago, NYC or Boston, Rome or Paris, but places that really are under the threat of change. I want to take my kids to see the beautiful places I've seen because it just won't be the same in their lifetime. As for this season, I would definitely avoid the parks for sure. It'll be disgusting. I think it can be done cheaply if you enjoy camping but it can be truly lux and $$ in the right resort. The most wonderful thing about enjoying the national parks is the scenery is breathtaking no matter how you want to approach viewing it. |
This is the most ignorant comment I’ve read today. |
$30,000 to go to Yellowstone? Honestly. I’m just shaking by my head. Hope it was worth it. A trip to Yellowstone is not that hard to plan. It’s Yellowstone, not Papua New Guinea. I don’t know how on earth you could spend that much there if you tried but I guess some people just love spending money. If I was spending 30 grand on a trip, it sure wouldn’t be to Yellowstone. |
I didn’t post to try to convince people to drop that kind of money on Yellowstone. I posted because Yellowstone attracts all kinds of people, even people who aren’t poor. |
It goes beyond your summer vacation. This is wrecking the cultural and national heritage for future generations as well. |
I want to travel with you! |
Yes, we’re destroying natural wonders that we can’t replace. |
Yup. There is a reason ISIS attacked and destroyed world heritage treasures. If you want to control and subjugate you population,.you need to erase prized heritage from before and start all over again. This is literally year zero kinda stuff. Destory Amercan heritage so the tech oligarchs can stay over again with a blank slate and control the country after wiping out any memory of our constitutional Republic. |