ACADIA NATIONAL PARK — The entrances to America’s seventh-busiest national park were open Friday, but unmanned. Visitor centers were closed. Park rangers were scarce, most having been furloughed by the government shutdown.

The parking lots and Island Explorer buses remained full of guests determined to enjoy one of Maine’s most popular tourist destinations at the height of leaf peeping season, but the experience looked a little different.

“It’s confusing to know what’s open, what’s closed, what we can do, what we can’t do,” said Chris DeMichieli, who was visiting from Michigan. “We know they have limited services, but because the visitor centers are closed down, it’s been hard to find any information.”

The government shutdown that began last week has disrupted every federal agency, including the U.S. Department of the Interior, which manages the National Park Service. As Republicans and Democrats in Congress continue to cast blame and an end to the stoppage seems elusive, President Donald Trump has threatened to use the shutdown to carry out mass layoffs.

The Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram spoke to a dozen Acadia National Park visitors from across the country on Friday, day three of the shutdown. Most said their trips were largely business as usual, though the absence of park rangers and staff made finding their way around the park much more difficult.

DeMichieli and her travel companion, Diana Griffin, had stopped at the Hulls Cove Visitor Center to buy a day pass and grab a map. But after walking up a couple flights of stairs from the parking lot, they found the center’s gift shop and restrooms were closed.

So, they returned to the Island Explorer bus stop at the parking lot, only to find the self-service kiosk for day passes was out of order. A crowd of people had gathered around the machine, attempting to scan a QR code to buy a pass online after having made the same round trip as DeMichieli and Griffin.

They were greeted with a website reading “passes are not available for purchase at this time.”

‘AS ACCESSIBLE AS POSSIBLE’

Most attractions inside the park remained open Friday, including campgrounds, but that could change if the shutdown persists.

The National Park Service briefly closed road access to Cadillac Mountain on Thursday before reopening it on a day-to-day basis Friday. The park’s website says Acadia will remain “as accessible as possible” during the shutdown.

Park officials have not responded to questions about how specifically the shutdown is impacting Acadia. Several park rangers, including some on duty working without pay and some who were furloughed, told a reporter they were instructed not to speak to the media.

A contingency plan made by the U.S. Department of the Interior in preparation for the government shutdown instructs parks “not (to) provide regular road or trail condition updates.”

The sporadic closures and absence of park rangers made Jenna and Paula Washburn’s trip from Pennsylvania far more difficult to plan. Other people they’d spoken to in Bar Harbor and in the park had conflicting information about which trails were and weren’t open.

“We couldn’t do a ton of planning about what to do once we got here,” Jenna said. “It was more just planning to get here.”

“But the bathrooms are open,” Paula said. “There’s always lines, but at least they’re all still open.”

Nearly all of the services still running in Acadia are operated by third-party vendors. The nonprofit Island Explorer buses are still running at regular intervals throughout the park. Thunder Hole Gift Shop, Jordan Pond House Restaurant and Cadillac Mountain Eco Store also are operated by a private company and remain open.

LONG-TERM IMPACTS?

Brenten Reust and his sister, Lindell, were visiting from Indiana. The looming shutdown added some anxiety around their visit, but they found that most of the trails they wanted to hike were open once they arrived. By noon Friday, they had hiked the popular Beehive trail and stopped by Thunder Hole with plans to swing by Otter Cliff and be in Bar Harbor by dinnertime.

Their main concern was how the shutdown could affect the park if it drags on. They had hardly seen a park ranger all day.

“I think the longer it’s shut down, the worse the littering becomes,” Lindell said, thinking back to the last government shutdown in 2018 when trash collection stopped at Acadia and other national parks.

“I mean, people are still going to come to the park, and then when there’s no place to put your refuse, people will put it on the ground,” Brenten added.

The Department of the Interior’s contingency plan advises parks to continue operating “expected activities” and emergency services and basic utilities, which includes restrooms and trash collection. But while some essential services are operational now, they could be impacted by the government shutdown as it drags on.

The Trump administration also has threatened to make “irreversible” layoffs and funding cuts to federal agencies across the board, which could include the park service. Roughly 9,300 of the agency’s 14,500 employees have already been furloughed, according to the Associated Press. That’s in addition to the sweeping cuts made by the administration earlier this year to staffing levels and budgets at Acadia and national parks across the country.

“Parks across the country are already operating with 24% fewer staff members than in January,” said Eric Stiles, president and CEO of the Friends of Acadia nonprofit. “This is not sustainable.”

The government shutdown and potential mass firings of park service employees comes ahead of peak leaf season, when the park experiences its final surge of visitors before a long slow season through winter and early spring.

More than 550,000 people visited Acadia last October, making it one of the busiest months of the year. Judging by the full parking lots Friday at Jordan Pond, Sand Beach and Hulls Cove, this October will likely be busy, too.