Yosemite National Park is a mess
A couple of miles past the western entrance to Yosemite National Park, visitors
pass from California into a postcard. The road opens to a majestic view of Half
Dome, El Capitan and Cathedral Rocks—celebrity peaks if ever there were which
form the towering walls of Yosemite Valley. On the pine-scented floor of John
Muir's mountain mansion, the Merced River flows gently by the side of the road
as signs point toward trailheads and tourist destinations. Not far from Curry
Village, a cluster of tent cabins and eateries at the eastern end of the road,
is a section of employee housing known as the Stables. It was there that Erin
Rau found herself wrapped in a sleeping bag one broiling afternoon last summer,
wondering whether she was about to die.
Rau was a little over a month into a seasonal job selling goods in the village's general store. Almost as soon as she arrived from Michigan, she recalls, she got the sense this wouldn't be the carefree, post-college summer gig she'd imagined. In the evenings, she was left alone to manage a bunch of fellow early-twentysomethings making the same sixteenish bucks an hour until the shop closed at 10. At night a family of ringtail possums would crawl down from the rafters to tear into a display of baked goods, a long-standing issue she says her bosses did nothing to resolve, apart from throwing away half-eaten muffins in the morning. Similarly, deer mice kept leaving droppings on the pillows and sheets in the cabin Rau shared with three other women. When one of her roommates complained, she says, management supplied a Ziploc with a couple of mouse traps, a mask, gloves and some hand wipes, leaving the employees to sort out the rest.
Then, one morning, Rau awoke with what felt like the worst flu of her life. For days she huddled in bed with the heater cranked up as waves of nausea rippled down her freezing, aching body. On the third night, one of her roommates insisted on driving her the hour and a half to the nearest emergency room, in Mariposa. "I thought I was dying," Rau says. "I was shaking uncontrollably, I was so cold." The ER doctor told her that, based on her symptoms, she most likely had hantavirus, a rare disease that can attack the heart or kidneys with stunning ferocity. It kills more than 1 in 3 people. And it's transmitted by, you guessed it, deer mice.
Rau in her van. Photographer: Ali Lapetina for Bloomberg Businessweek
Rau was shocked. Although there are signs around Yosemite warning that the mice may carry hantavirus, the disease is diagnosed in fewer than 30 Americans per year, and California averages two or three cases. When she asked for a note so she could request better housing, a nurse recommended she quit and leave instead. "It's really unsafe to be working there," Rau remembers her saying. "We get lots of people that get into really bad situations."
Every national park has its risks. Entire books have been devoted to recounting the cinematic ways people die in these places lovingly described as America's Best Idea. But Rau's case wasn't an isolated incident of neglect. Yosemite has become more dangerous for people and wildlife alike on the watch of Aramark, the private contractor that largely runs the developed parts of the park.
For decades, Aramark has threaded itself through American institutions by making meals that are just good enough for a captive audience. Think of the $8 hot dog at your last baseball game. The buffet at your college dining hall. The hospital plate with the industrial-grade meat. Over the past decade, Aramark has also extended its hospitality within the great outdoors. At several of the country's showpiece national parks, the company is now the main concessionaire. In exchange for a modest cut to the federal government, it has the exclusive contract to sell almost everything you can buy there, save for the entrance fee. Aramark staff maintain many park-owned properties. And it seems the public is getting what it pays for.
Hundreds of pages of federal documents and interviews with more than 30 current and former employees speak to the costs, including chemical spills, a ceiling collapse, a viral outbreak, bedbugs and food storage issues that led to the killing of three bears. The majestic Ahwahnee hotel, where President Barack Obama and the Queen of England have stayed, is in shambles. The National Park Service's latest evaluation of Yosemite Hospitality LLC, the Aramark subsidiary that runs most of the tourist amenities, is scathing by the standards of park rangers. "The Service is extremely concerned that the years of neglect in maintaining assets has directly impacted visitor safety," says the report, which found the company to be noncompliant in several areas in 2023, including asset maintenance, environmental monitoring and hazard incident response. And: "The Service is particularly concerned about the state of the Wawona Hotel and The Ahwahnee Hotel, as they are historic assets and National Historic Landmarks."
"We take our responsibility as stewards of America's national parks very seriously," Sheena Weinstein, director of external communications for Aramark's destinations division, said in a statement that detailed some recent staffing changes. "When a concern is reported, our policy is to thoroughly evaluate the issue and take appropriate action. We expect our operations to consistently meet the high standards we've set in our industry, and the safety and health of our guests and park staff are always our top priority." Weinstein noted that the company has been working with the park service for 35 years. She didn't respond to requests for comment about the overwhelming majority of the specific claims in this story.
Aramark's contract in Yosemite, worth approximately $2 billion over 15 years, is part of a portfolio of parks that includes Badlands, Bryce Canyon, Denali, Grand Teton, Olympic and part of the Grand Canyon. These contracts amount to rounding errors for the company, which brought in almost $19 billion in revenue in 2023 and had its best second quarter earlier this year. But Aramark has been expanding its park interests, including by acquiring a rival concessionaire. Yosemite isn't the only park, however, where the National Park Service has concluded that the company is letting maintenance and other services slip, and Aramark has begun to face blowback.
To some degree, the condition of these cherished destinations is the legacy of regulatory deference and inertia, but it also reflects a kind of symbiosis. The national parks were built on relationships with concessionaires, and the federal government relies heavily on those businesses to run them. In Yosemite, officials have so far chosen to keep Aramark in place. "We appreciate and recognize the positive changes that Yosemite Hospitality has made so far in 2024," a park spokesperson said in an email, adding that the park will continue to monitor the results. "We value our partnership and look forward to working together to continue to improve the visitor experience."
"People just take it for granted" that places like Yosemite are being taken care of, Rau says. Around the time she recovered last summer, weeks after she first fell ill, her roommates discovered a large hole in the floor of their tent cabin that was surrounded by mouse droppings. Rau quit soon after. She's since traveled to a series of other national parks, posting videos about her experiences for her substantial YouTube following. Despite everything she went through, she still loves these places. "It's so cool that we're able to have all these amenities and everything's so protected," she says. "But the people who work there, they're having to put in the time to make all that possible." And those workers, she says, "need help."
Rau was a little over a month into a seasonal job selling goods in the village's general store. Almost as soon as she arrived from Michigan, she recalls, she got the sense this wouldn't be the carefree, post-college summer gig she'd imagined. In the evenings, she was left alone to manage a bunch of fellow early-twentysomethings making the same sixteenish bucks an hour until the shop closed at 10. At night a family of ringtail possums would crawl down from the rafters to tear into a display of baked goods, a long-standing issue she says her bosses did nothing to resolve, apart from throwing away half-eaten muffins in the morning. Similarly, deer mice kept leaving droppings on the pillows and sheets in the cabin Rau shared with three other women. When one of her roommates complained, she says, management supplied a Ziploc with a couple of mouse traps, a mask, gloves and some hand wipes, leaving the employees to sort out the rest.
Then, one morning, Rau awoke with what felt like the worst flu of her life. For days she huddled in bed with the heater cranked up as waves of nausea rippled down her freezing, aching body. On the third night, one of her roommates insisted on driving her the hour and a half to the nearest emergency room, in Mariposa. "I thought I was dying," Rau says. "I was shaking uncontrollably, I was so cold." The ER doctor told her that, based on her symptoms, she most likely had hantavirus, a rare disease that can attack the heart or kidneys with stunning ferocity. It kills more than 1 in 3 people. And it's transmitted by, you guessed it, deer mice.
Rau in her van. Photographer: Ali Lapetina for Bloomberg Businessweek
Rau was shocked. Although there are signs around Yosemite warning that the mice may carry hantavirus, the disease is diagnosed in fewer than 30 Americans per year, and California averages two or three cases. When she asked for a note so she could request better housing, a nurse recommended she quit and leave instead. "It's really unsafe to be working there," Rau remembers her saying. "We get lots of people that get into really bad situations."
Every national park has its risks. Entire books have been devoted to recounting the cinematic ways people die in these places lovingly described as America's Best Idea. But Rau's case wasn't an isolated incident of neglect. Yosemite has become more dangerous for people and wildlife alike on the watch of Aramark, the private contractor that largely runs the developed parts of the park.
For decades, Aramark has threaded itself through American institutions by making meals that are just good enough for a captive audience. Think of the $8 hot dog at your last baseball game. The buffet at your college dining hall. The hospital plate with the industrial-grade meat. Over the past decade, Aramark has also extended its hospitality within the great outdoors. At several of the country's showpiece national parks, the company is now the main concessionaire. In exchange for a modest cut to the federal government, it has the exclusive contract to sell almost everything you can buy there, save for the entrance fee. Aramark staff maintain many park-owned properties. And it seems the public is getting what it pays for.
Hundreds of pages of federal documents and interviews with more than 30 current and former employees speak to the costs, including chemical spills, a ceiling collapse, a viral outbreak, bedbugs and food storage issues that led to the killing of three bears. The majestic Ahwahnee hotel, where President Barack Obama and the Queen of England have stayed, is in shambles. The National Park Service's latest evaluation of Yosemite Hospitality LLC, the Aramark subsidiary that runs most of the tourist amenities, is scathing by the standards of park rangers. "The Service is extremely concerned that the years of neglect in maintaining assets has directly impacted visitor safety," says the report, which found the company to be noncompliant in several areas in 2023, including asset maintenance, environmental monitoring and hazard incident response. And: "The Service is particularly concerned about the state of the Wawona Hotel and The Ahwahnee Hotel, as they are historic assets and National Historic Landmarks."
"We take our responsibility as stewards of America's national parks very seriously," Sheena Weinstein, director of external communications for Aramark's destinations division, said in a statement that detailed some recent staffing changes. "When a concern is reported, our policy is to thoroughly evaluate the issue and take appropriate action. We expect our operations to consistently meet the high standards we've set in our industry, and the safety and health of our guests and park staff are always our top priority." Weinstein noted that the company has been working with the park service for 35 years. She didn't respond to requests for comment about the overwhelming majority of the specific claims in this story.
Aramark's contract in Yosemite, worth approximately $2 billion over 15 years, is part of a portfolio of parks that includes Badlands, Bryce Canyon, Denali, Grand Teton, Olympic and part of the Grand Canyon. These contracts amount to rounding errors for the company, which brought in almost $19 billion in revenue in 2023 and had its best second quarter earlier this year. But Aramark has been expanding its park interests, including by acquiring a rival concessionaire. Yosemite isn't the only park, however, where the National Park Service has concluded that the company is letting maintenance and other services slip, and Aramark has begun to face blowback.
To some degree, the condition of these cherished destinations is the legacy of regulatory deference and inertia, but it also reflects a kind of symbiosis. The national parks were built on relationships with concessionaires, and the federal government relies heavily on those businesses to run them. In Yosemite, officials have so far chosen to keep Aramark in place. "We appreciate and recognize the positive changes that Yosemite Hospitality has made so far in 2024," a park spokesperson said in an email, adding that the park will continue to monitor the results. "We value our partnership and look forward to working together to continue to improve the visitor experience."
"People just take it for granted" that places like Yosemite are being taken care of, Rau says. Around the time she recovered last summer, weeks after she first fell ill, her roommates discovered a large hole in the floor of their tent cabin that was surrounded by mouse droppings. Rau quit soon after. She's since traveled to a series of other national parks, posting videos about her experiences for her substantial YouTube following. Despite everything she went through, she still loves these places. "It's so cool that we're able to have all these amenities and everything's so protected," she says. "But the people who work there, they're having to put in the time to make all that possible." And those workers, she says, "need help."
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