By Joe Smillie, Forum Editor

Visitors were given the boot at West End lodges at Lake Crescent, Kalaloch and Sol Duc Hot Springs as Olympic National Park was closed and its 103 employees furloughed because of the federal government’s shutdown.

The park is shut down after the House of Representatives and Senate failed to reach a settlement on a budget deal that would have kept government operations funded.

“Guests in hotels and lodges and campgrounds would have 48 hours notice to leave,” Barb Maynes, Olympic National Park spokesman, said of the shutdown’s effects.

The Forks Ranger District Office on Tillicum Lane also was shut down by the federal stoppage.

A skeletal staff at the park of 31 employees will continue to work in security, emergency response and maintenance of water and sewer systems through the shutdown.

Also shut down by the lack of a budget deal is the Olympic Coast National Marine Sanctuary, a division of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, NOAA.

Military and law enforcement agencies like the Coast Guard and Border Patrol will not be affected by the shutdown.