Kurt Repanshek

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The outdoor recreation industry largely has been quiet during the current government shutdown, which has left public lands from national parks and forests to Bureau of Land Management lands open to recreation but largely devoid of rangers.

With the ongoing government shutdown having left many units of the National Park System without rangers, some parks are turning to volunteers for jobs normally held by interpretive rangers. Such as Yosemite National Park.

Ten months of mental anguish over their careers, now compounded by going without pay, has left some National Park Service employees struggling financially to get by but committed to their jobs.

Determined to punch through a more than 200-mile-long road across a wild, remote section of Alaska, the Trump administration on Thursday granted the rights-of-way for the road and transferred nearly 24,000 acres to the state to clear the way for a massive mine copper operation.

With basejumpers leaping illegally from cliffs in Yosemite National Park and reports of park restrooms overflowing with garbage, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum is again being urged to close the National Park System while the government remains in a partial shutdown.

Since 1939 federal employees have been prohibited from engaging in partisan politics, but that apparently hasn't swayed some Interior Department employees from doing so.

Republican senators from Utah, Wyoming, Texas, Tennessee, Mississippi and Florida have introduced legislation they say will better protect borderlands while providing more access to them.

National Park System sites will remain open during the government shutdown, though the National Park Service staff will be greatly reduced and visitor services could be significantly reduced, according to the Interior Department.

President Donald Trump, who has stated his desire to remove from national parks and other federal institutions materials that "disparage" Americans, has directed the removal of some materials that interpret enslaved history from some national park sites, according to a media report.