MESA VERDE NATIONAL PARK – Melanie Kimmel and Lukas Leitner, tourists from Munich, Germany, envisioned a grand tour of America’s national parks. They flew into San Francisco, but were turned away at the gates of Yosemite and Death Valley national parks because of the government shutdown.
They made it to Mesa Verde on Thursday just as the park reopened.
“It was kind of a problem when the parks closed because we’re more or less here for the parks,” Leitner said.
Mesa Verde reopened Thursday, along with Aztec Ruins National Monument and agencies from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to the Bureau of Reclamation. Federal employees returned to work after more than two weeks of forced furloughs.
“We were all very glad to get back to work,” said Ann Bond, public affairs officer for the San Juan National Forest. The Forest Service has about 180 full-time employees in Durango, Bayfield, Pagosa Springs and Dolores, and several dozen temporary positions.
At Durango-La Plata County Airport, Transportation Security Administration agents worked without pay for the duration of the shutdown.
At Mesa Verde, park rangers turned back 2,299 visitors at the gate during the shutdown, said Betty Lieurance, a spokeswoman at the park.
Many more visitors presumably were discouraged from stopping by. Mesa Verde typically attracts about 40,000 visitors each October.
The shutdown of one of Southwest Colorado’s primary attractions reverberated among nearby businesses.
Mike Lowe, owner of Mesa Verde RV Resort along U.S. Highway 160 near the park entrance, said he expected to lose about half of his typical October business. He estimated the shutdown cost him $10,000.
“To me, it’s a lot of money,” he said.
About 100 reservations were canceled, and other visits were cut short. A couple of dedicated RVers arrived Oct. 1, the day the shutdown began, and opted to stick it out until Mesa Verde reopened. They were still at the RV park Thursday, Lowe said.
Lowe closes the RV park at the end of October until next spring, giving him little time to make up for lost revenue.
“It’s pretty devastating, to be honest with you,” he said. “I just hope they don’t do anything stupid next year.”
Dale and Mary Pat Scheckel were glad to squeeze in a visit to Mesa Verde before returning home to the Des Moines, Iowa, area. Mary Pat Scheckel said Mesa Verde was a “bucket list” destination she had long wanted to visit.
“This is a hard place to get to,” she said. “I would have been very, very disappointed.”
Kimmel and Leitner, the German tourists, said they still had fun despite the shutdown barring them from some destinations. Yet they were perplexed a modern democracy would come so close to a fiscal deadline.
Leitner said, “Doing a federal budget hours before the economy breaks down or whatever – that’s crazy.”
Staff Writer Jim Haug contributed to this report.
cslothower@durangoherald.com
