GHOSTED AT THE GATE?

For generations of visitors to Yosemite National Park, talking to the park ranger at the entrance gate, in their familiar khaki gray and forest green, is a tradition: Exchange some pleasantries, buy a pass, get a map and go on your way.

But increasingly, when you pull up to the gate house, like this reporter did last week, it’s empty. No one is on duty.

The Arch Rock Entrance from Highway 140 and the Big Oak Flat Entrance from Highway 120 appear to be the most effected.

A shortage of park rangers appears to be the main reason, something that might not improve anytime soon with a proposed 25 percent cut to the National Park Service budget.

An anonymous park employee told SF Gate it is “certainly out of the ordinary” and that staffing levels are “less than 50 percent of what they would be if we had complete staff.”

A National Park Service (NPS) spokesperson downplayed the issue and said it was part of a seasonal transition.

“The problem with these claims is that they rely on anonymous sourcing to create a false impression of dysfunction where none exists,” said the NPS spokesperson in a statement.

“Yosemite is open, entrance operations are being managed based on visitation and operational needs and the park has hired additional staff approved back in December and is using trained staff and flexible scheduling to maintain fee collection during the off season while seasonal employees are still onboarding,” the spokesperson said.

Follow the money

Having a park ranger at the gate isn’t just a matter of nostalgia. How you buy an admission pass plays a big role in where the money goes.

When you buy a pass at the entrance gate, 80 percent of the money stays with Yosemite National Park. About $25 million is reportedly collected in gate fees every year.

The National Park Service, however, is increasingly pushing people to buy their admission pass at Recreation.gov, especially international visitors, who now pay a $100 surcharge and are encouraged to buy the America the Beautiful pass online for $250.

But the money from the America the Beautiful pass isn’t going directly to Yosemite.

Far from it, in fact.

In the Trump Administration’s 1,400 page budget proposal released last week, proceeds from the America the Beautiful passes, “are distributed among the federal land management agencies which offer them for sale, including the NPS, the Bureau of Land Management, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Bureau of Reclamation and the U.S. Forest Service, as determined by the Secretaries of the Department of the Interior and the Department of Agriculture.”

In other words, the money will go into the federal bureaucracy and won’t necessarily be distributed proportionally to the parks that are actually bringing in the most money.

That was the fear of local county government leaders who wrote last month to Department of Interior Secretary Doug Burgum.

“While the America the Beautiful pass may offer a more affordable option for individual visitors, shifting entrance fee dollars to this pass not only impacts critical fees retained within the park to support ongoing operations but also incentives higher volumes of single-vehicle entry,” the county supervisors wrote.

The Trump Administration’s budget calls for $736 million in cuts to NPS next year.

Burgum said in a statement there will be a realignment of resources toward “visitor facing roles.”

Whether that means a park ranger stationed at the entrance gate, remains to be seen.