Olson said that a few years ago, anecdotes were common about services in the parks being cut deeper every year. But now, amid more budget attention for parks for the centennial, he said more park administrators are starting to talk about adding or expanding services. The Deseret News found this to be true among several superintendents in Utah.

Troubling trends

The newspaper's analysis of national park data shows some troubling trends. In short, visitors may be loving the parks to death while the agency is cutting back on full-time employees and its budgets fall behind inflation.

The News found that between 2003 and 2007, recreational visits to parks nationally increased by 3.6 percent. But "full-time equivalents" of employees were cut by 2 percent.

Park-level operations budgets nationally did increase by an average of 11.6 percent in those five years. But that was lower than the 12.7 percent combined rate of inflation.

The situation was more extreme in Utah.

Visitation at its 13 sites increased 4.3 percent overall in that time. But full-time equivalents were cut by 6.6 percent, almost twice as deeply as the national average.

Meanwhile, park-level operations budgets in Utah increased overall by only 9 percent, well below the national average and the rate of inflation.

However, satisfaction surveys conducted at parks remain incredibly positive. In fact, 96 percent of visitors surveyed at parks nationally last year rated facilities, services and recreational opportunities as "very good" or "good." (The other options were "average," "poor" or "very poor.")

In Utah, 94 percent of visitors gave "very good" or "good" ratings, down a bit from 96 percent in 2003.

Olson said that since the agency commissioned such studies in 1998, "Our numbers of visitors who rank services as 'very good' have slipped." But, he adds, "They are only slipping from the 'very good' to the 'good' category."

Olson said the park service may be keeping visitors happy despite fewer employees and declining budgets because it has worked to better prioritize what services are most important and to fund them.

Similarly, he adds, the maintenance backlog at parks "is so large that realistically, we'll never address all of it" with foreseeable budgets, but the service tries to address the most important projects. He said emphasis from Bush's Centennial Challenge has helped keep budgets a bit healthier.

"It doesn't mean that they are where we like them. What it means is they are are not being cut any further," he said.

So how are Utah's national parks and monuments faring amid those trends? The News asked superintendents. Most acknowledge some lean times in recent years, but say budgets have most recently improved a bit.

Following is a park-by-park rundown of what their superintendents say.

Zion National Park