YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK, Wyo. – The Latest on how the government shutdown is affecting national parks (all times local):
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10:35 a.m.
Visitors can still ride snowmobiles and snow coaches into Yellowstone National Park to gaze at the geysers and buffalo herds, despite the federal government shutdown.
The historic park in northwest Wyoming was open under a blanket of fresh snow on Saturday.
Visitor centers and other facilities run by the National Park Service were closed, but privately operated hotels, tour services and gift shops were open.
Xanterra (zan-TEHR’-uh) Parks & Resorts and other private companies that serve visitors at Yellowstone said they would groom Yellowstone’s snow-packed roads for up to a week to keep them open for snowmobiles and snow coaches — small buses with tank-like tracks.
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10 a.m.
The snowy mountains and frozen lakes of Rocky Mountain National Park are still accessible to visitors, despite the federal government shutdown.
But across the country in New York, the nation’s most famous monuments to immigration — the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island — were closed Saturday.
The National Park Service oversees both natural wonders and historic landmarks across the nation. The park service’s parent agency, the Interior Department, had vowed to keep as many parks and public lands open as possible during the shutdown, which began at midnight Friday on the East Coast.
But by mid-day Saturday, the pattern was spotty.
The USS Constitution, the 220-year-old warship anchored at Charlestown Navy Yard in Boston, was open, but Boston’s Bunker Hill Monument was closed.
