Lines of cars drive through Arches National Park last week. The Visitor Center is open, with smiling faces and park rangers behind the information desk, interacting with children and answering questions. Couples and families have maps in their hands, and a dog is barking outside while its owners are packing up their car.

This is the complete opposite of what was observed during the first few days of the government shutdown.

The state of Utah has remained committed to keeping the Mighty 5 open during the federal shutdown — but there is still uncertainty among nonprofits.

“I haven’t actually heard this from the state yet, but just talking to other national park nonprofits in the state, the general consensus is we’re not sure that the state will continue support after the end of this month,” said Sam Wainer, executive director for Canyonlands Natural History Association.

Anna Loughridge, public relations manager for the Utah Office of Tourism, told The Times-Independent, “the state remains committed to ensuring that the parks are supported, remain open and operating.”

Wainer, however, is still preparing a contingency plan just in case there is a lapse in state funding. This concern among nonprofits stems from visitation dropping “dramatically” once October ends, Wainer added.

Wainer hopes to have a clearer picture this week, but is still working on creating donation agreements with the National Park Service, just in case the nonprofit has to step in.

Tourists, however, are eager to make their way around the parks and are pleased with their experiences at Arches and Canyonlands. A group visiting from San Francisco expressed gratitude to the state for keeping the parks open and said that concerns they originally had because of the shutdown didn’t come to fruition.

“Thank you for keeping the National Parks open. Thank you for keeping it clean,” visitor Pam Bugbee said. “Thank you for paying the employees so that they didn’t go without a paycheck. I mean to me, that is so huge. You just have to respect the community.”

Larry Fong, another visitor, was worried the parks and bathroom facilities would be “trashed,” but that wasn’t the case. “They’ve been excellent,” Bugbee added.

How services are addressing the issue

To combat uncertainty revolving around the government shutdown, the State Historic Preservation Office stepped in to provide volunteers at federal public trail heads, cultural sites and recreation areas throughout the state.

(Lizzie Ramirez | The Times-Independent) Visitors at Arches National Park wander outside of the closed visitors center on Thursday, Oct. 2.

The stewardship program is the largest in the country, and Archaeologist Ian Wright said the waitlist to volunteer is “a pretty long one.”

“We’re just really grateful, especially at times like this during a shutdown, to have so many dedicated people,” Wright told The Times-Independent. “Even though there are stewards out there helping during a shutdown, we get reached out to by people who aren’t stewards. They might be guiding companies or individual citizens saying, ‘hey, we’re not stewards, but can you still use us during the shutdown?’”

During the shutdown, volunteers spent roughly 611 hours safeguarding archaeological sites, and of those hours, 55 were spent in Grand County. About 82 stewards have dedicated their time, with 11 mobilized in Grand County.

Stewards have visited 121 sites statewide, 22 of those in the Moab area. This includes volunteers greeting visitors and Wright said the sentiment between volunteers and visitors has been “extremely positive.”

There are also volunteers from Nevada, Arizona and Colorado who have been making their way to Utah to help with this effort.

To support CNHA’s furloughed employees, Wainer allocated funds for their typically scheduled paychecks during the first two weeks of the shutdown.

But Wainer said the nonprofit is beginning to feel the impacts of the shutdown the longer it drags on.

Concerns if the shutdown goes past November

The nonprofit manages the stores at the parks, and because some are closed, CNHA is projected to lose roughly $81,000 for the month of October. These include stores at Natural Bridges, Bears Ears, Hovenweep, and Canyons of the Ancients national monuments.

However, because the stores at Arches, Canyonlands and the Moab Information Center are still open, Wainer said those expenditures are absorbing the loss in revenue. But that doesn’t mean CNHA may not experience more financial losses.

(Trent Nelson | The Salt Lake Tribune) The view at sunrise from Mesa Arch, in the Island in the Sky district of Canyonlands National Park.

“If the state chooses not to continue their support in keeping these visitor centers open in November, then that will have a larger financial impact on us,” Wainer said. “Our revenue goes down in November anyway, and we would be spending more money to help keep the parks open if that’s the route we take.”

Additional federal challenges are impacting the nonprofit’s internal processes — such as knowing how much to donate to the parks, how much should be budgeted for fiscal year 2026, and not being able to receive applications for their research grant program, the Discovery Pool.

While it’s unlikely the government will reopen before November, some are predicting it will be the longest shutdown in the nation’s history — and Wainer is worried the public doesn’t understand the detrimental impacts this shutdown could have.

“With the budget cuts and all the employee cuts that are happening, as nonprofits step in to support more and more, it, in some ways, sends the wrong message,” Wainer said. “It makes it appear that nothing is wrong. It’s not up to us to fund public lands. We support them greatly … and we’re happy to do that, and that’s our mission. But it’s not our mission to fund them completely.”

Note to readers • This story was first published by The Times-Independent. Lizzie Ramirez is a Report for America corps member covering local government and tourism in Grand County for The Times-Independent. Your donation to match our RFA grant helps keep her writing stories. Please consider making a tax-deductible gift of any amount today by clicking here.