A view of the welcome sign near the entrance of Yosemite National Park in California on Dec. 13, 2025.

At 3:15 p.m. on an unseasonably warm Thursday in mid-March, Yosemite National Park’s Arch Rock Entrance had no line. Cruising by the entrance station, the reason became clear: There was no ranger there to collect fees, field questions or hand out maps.

“Station closed,” a sign in the window read. “Pay when exiting park.”

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Over the past month, an untold number of people entering Yosemite have had this same experience. Visitors, park advocates and tour guides who regularly drive into the park all told SFGATE that they, too, have been rolling through unstaffed entrances at various times of day. And Yosemite employees who spoke with SFGATE under the condition of anonymity to protect their jobs, in accordance with Hearst’s ethics policy, said the national park’s crown jewel simply doesn’t have enough employees to cover all the shifts.

“It is a staffing issue,” one Yosemite employee with access to the gate schedule said.

A motorist passes through the Tioga Pass fee station at the eastern entrance to Yosemite National Park, which is vacant of available employees to collect fees that help fund the park, on the first day of a government shutdown on Oct. 1, 2025.

The Big Oak Flat Entrance and the Arch Rock Entrance have been most impacted, according to another employee, with workers at those gates often starting shifts later than usual and ending earlier. In some instances, the gates have gone unstaffed for entire days and even multiple days in a row, including weekends, the employee said.

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Under normal circumstances, the gates would be staffed during regular business hours, an employee said, apart from slow days when trainings or meetings take precedence.

“This is certainly out of the ordinary,” the employee said. “Looking at our org chart, I would roughly estimate the current permanent gate staff levels are around or a little less than 50% of what they would be if we had complete staff.”

An........

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