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An Anonymous Coward writes in with this tidbit from NPR:

Two weeks into the government shutdown, National Parks are starting to close. The public has been getting free access, since there are no employees to collect entrance fees of up to $35 per car. But neither are employees there to collect trash and clean bathrooms. So, with overflowing trash cans and toilets posing a threat to human health and safety, parks are shutting down.

But in the nation's oldest national park, Yellowstone, local businesses are pitching in to pay park staff to keep it open — or at least parts of it.

[...] Jerry Johnson owns a business that rents snowmobiles and sends seven guided tours a day into Yellowstone in the winter. He calls it 'the trip of a lifetime.' When the shutdown began, he received a big spike in phone calls from people who had already booked trips, and he didn't want to tell them their Yellowstone adventure was cancelled because politicians in Washington D.C. couldn't resolve their differences.

[...] "If you don't groom," explained Johnson, "the trails will get very rough, and you get bumps, moguls, in them, and it'll be — it's just miserable."
So, during the shutdown, private businesses that operate inside the park are picking up the tab — about $7,500 dollars a day to groom Yellowstone's 300-plus miles of snow-covered roads, and to keep one paved road open to cars. Xanterra Parks and Resorts, which runs the only hotels operating inside the park in winter, is paying most of that — paying park service employees to perform the same grooming duties they do under normal circumstances.

Xanterra asked the 13 guide services that operate in the park to chip in to help pay, and all of them did. It adds up to about 300 bucks a day for each of the guide services.

Original Submission