New Mexico's 35 state parks will be closed Thursday while most of the state's 20,000 employees are furloughed for the day because of budget shortfalls.

In the Santa Fe area, that means Hyde Memorial State Park and the tubing hill behind the lodge will be closed — although Cottam's Ski Shop will remain open, said Dannie Jones, marketing manager for New Mexico State Parks. Campers in the park have been told they will have to leave by 9 p.m. today and can return at 8 a.m. Christmas Day.

But perhaps nowhere will the impact be felt any greater than in the small New Mexico community of Navajo Dam near Aztec, where virtually every business in town is dependent upon Navajo Lake State Park, through which the San Juan River flows.

The park and its year-round, trophy-class trout fishery draw anglers from all over the world and contribute an estimated $30 million to the state's economy annually.

Many businesses, including fishing guides, fly shops, hotels and restaurants, are being forced to close their doors Christmas Eve day because of the furlough.

The park and 34 others across the state will be closed for five days in the next four months; any day the river and the lake at Navajo Dam are closed essentially puts locals out of business.

"It's just plain stupid," says Chuck Rizuto, one of the longest-serving guides on the river and owner of a lodge, fly shop and guide service. "They haven't even bothered to think about what this will do to our tourism."

What Rizuto finds particularly galling is the park will have a skeleton crew on duty Thursday to keep people out. On Christmas Day, another skeleton crew will open the park gates.

"It just doesn't make sense," he says. "Why not just leave it open if they're going to have to these guys down there anyhow?"

That's the problem many who work on the San Juan River are having with the furlough plan.

"This is ridiculous," says Larry Johnson of the San Juan River Guides Association. "If anybody in private business ran things this way, they'd go broke."

Johnson, in a letter to state parks Director Dave Simon, said he understood the state's need to reduce costs, but argued that the closing Navajo Lake State Park will not only cost the state revenue from user's fees, but also harm local businesses.

"I don't understand why they can't just keep the park open with a skeleton crew instead of closing it for an entire day," Johnson said.

That's what they're doing in Colorado, where state employee furloughs have been ordered because of budget shortfalls.

"Our state parks are a part of everyday life for many people here," said Deb Frazier, spokeswoman for Colorado State Parks. "And it seemed to us that the best solution was to keep them open with skeleton crews on duty."

Simon said he's aware of the problem in the San Juan area. "I sympathize with them but that (skeleton crews) wasn't an option that was made available to us."

Simon says after Gov. Bill Richardson issued the executive order calling for the furlough days, the parks' parent agency immediately sought a way to keep the parks open.

Simon says he never spoke directly to Richardson about the furlough plan but that his boss, Joanna Prukop, secretary of the Energy, Minerals and Natural Resources Department, argued his agency's case for keeping parks open.

Prukop, who will retire Dec. 31, was unavailable for comment.

Simon says his understanding of the furlough plan was it was designed to maximize savings by having as many state employees off, and their offices closed, on the furlough days.

The plan is estimated to save the state about $11 million, while the overall budget shortfall is about $650 million.

The governor's spokesman, Gilbert Gallegos, said the furlough plan was devised to limit exceptions to the rules, but he praised Richardson's willingness to allow the state parks to close on other days to reduce the impact of the shutdown.

There were to be few if any exceptions to the plan except for emergency workers, Gallegos said.

The original plan called for most of the furloughs to fall on Fridays before holidays, thus creating four-day weekends. But that came at a great inconvenience to the public.

For instance, a park such as Elephant Butte Lake State Park, which sees more than 100,000 visitors over a typical Memorial Day weekend, would have been closed to early birds who showed up on Friday to find a campsite.

Gallegos said Richardson showed "great flexibility" in allowing state parks to close on Tuesdays in February and March instead, while the rest of the state employees had to adhere to the other schedule.

State parks will be closed Thursday; Jan. 15; Feb. 9; March 2; and March 23.

"I book some of my biggest trips in March during the week," says Rizuto. "That's when most out-of-state tourists want to come, to avoid the weekend crowds. What am I supposed to tell them, the river's closed for a day?"

Park rangers will be on duty during the closure dates to keep trespassers out and will issue citations if necessary, Simon said. Anyone convicted of criminal trespass while hunting or fishing could have their fishing privileges revoked for up to three years.

Karl F. Moffatt is a longtime New Mexico journalist and avid outdoorsman. He can be contacted through his blog at www.outdoorsnewmexico.com">www.outdoorsnewmexico.com.