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Fed up with losing tourism money and with businesses hurting from the collapse of visitors to and around the national parks, the state and local governments are striking back on their own. Close to a dozen of the major parks will be reopening today, Saturday, 10.12.14. The parks have been called “America’s best idea” by documentarian Ken Burns and closing them, to many people, is like a slap across the face with a freezing cold wash cloth. People don’t like it, at all, especially when they are on long planned vacations and show up only to be turned away.

NPR had a story this week about a group who had paid $2,000. to the Park Service for a permit to raft down the Colorado River in the Grand Canyon and had spent thousands more (up to $30,000) to outfit a trip and get 16 people to the put in spot. All of that made it more than a slap across the face when they were turned away. Getting a permit, the first step in rafting the Colorado, can take years of waiting.

Here is a clip from the WashPost with a link to the full story.

By Juliet Eilperin and Lenny Bernstein, Published: October 11 (2013) E-mail the writers

 On Saturday, the barricades at  Utah’s Natural Bridges National Monument will disappear, allowing  visitors to return to the tourist draw despite the government shutdown.  They will also come down at Colorado’s Rocky Mountain National Park, Arizona’s Grand Canyon and New York’s Statue of Liberty.

What began as a sort of modern Sagebrush Rebellion, with Utah  county commissioners threatening to bring in a posse and dismantle federal barricades themselves, has become an intense negotiation between Interior Secretary Sally Jewell and governors across the country, who are eager to reopen public lands that generate valuable tourism revenue.

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