Parks and Degradation

Yosemite is falling apart. Current and former employees and superfans of the national park blame Aramark, the company that mostly runs the place. By Laura Bliss

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Parks and degradation. Yosemite is falling apart. Current and former
employees and superfans of the National Park blame Aramark, the
company that mostly runs the place. By Laura Bliss. A
couple of miles past the western entrance to Yosemite National Park,
visitors pass from California into a postcard. The road opens

(00:23):
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 trail heads and tourist destinations. Not far from Curry Village,

(00:45):
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 Aaron Rao
found herself wrapped in a sleeping bag one broiling afternoon
last summer, wondering whether she was to die. Rao was
a little over a month into a seasonal job selling
goods in the village's general store. Almost as soon as

(01:08):
she arrived from Michigan, 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 twenty somethings making the same sixteenish bucks
an hour until the shop closed at ten at night,
a family of ringtail possums would crawl down from the
rafters to tear into a display of baked goods, a

(01:30):
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 Rao shared with three other women. When
one of her roommates complained, management gave her a ziplock
with a couple of mouse traps, a mask, gloves, and
some handwipes, leaving the employees to sort out the rest.

(01:54):
Then one morning, Rao awoke with what felt like the
worst flew 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, Rao says. I was shaking uncontrollably.

(02:17):
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 one in three people,
and it's transmitted by you guessed it, deer mice. Rao
was shocked. Although there are signs around Yosemite warning that

(02:38):
the mice may carry hantavirus, the disease is diagnosed in
fewer than thirty 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,
Rao remembers her, saying, we get lots of people that

(02:59):
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 rouse case wasn't an isolated incident of neglect. Yosemite
has become more dangerous for people and wildlife alike on

(03:19):
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
eight dollars hot dog at your last baseball game, the
buffet at your college dining hall, the hospital plate with

(03:40):
the industrial grade meet. Over the past decade, Aramark has
also extended its hospitality within the great outdoors at several
of the country's show piece 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 anything you can buy there save for the

(04:01):
entrance fee. Aramark staff maintained 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 thirty current and former employees speak to the costs,
including chemical spills, ceiling collapses, a viral outbreak, bedbugs, and
food storage issues that led to the killing of three bears.

(04:25):
The majestic Iwani 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 the Aramark subsidiary
that runs the place, 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,

(04:47):
says the report, which found the company to be non
compliant in several areas in twenty twenty three, including asset maintenance,
environmental monitoring, and hazard Incident responds and the servi US
is particularly concerned about the state of the Wawona Hotel
and the Iwani Hotel, as they are historic assets and
National Historic landmarks. Aramark didn't respond to requests for comment

(05:11):
about most of the specific claims in this story, but
said in a statement that it's doing its best. We
take our responsibility as stewards of America's national parks very seriously,
said Sina Weinstein, director of external communications for the company's
Destinations division, who noted that the company has been working
with the Park Service for thirty five years. When a

(05:32):
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. Aramark's contract in Yosemite,
worth approximately two billion dollars over fifteen years, is part

(05:53):
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 nineteen billion dollars in revenue in twenty twenty
three and had its best second quarter earlier this year.
But Aramark has been expanding its park interests, including by

(06:16):
acquiring a rival concessionaire. Yosemite isn't the only park, however,
where the company has been accused of letting maintenance and
other services slip, and Aramark has begun to face blowback
in other parts of the country. To some degree, the
condition of these cherished destinations is the legacy of regulatory
deference and inertia, but it's also the result of a symbiosis.

(06:38):
The national parks were built on relationships with concessionaires, and
the federal government relies heavily on those businesses to run them.
In Yosemite, the officials who might be able to force
Aramark to shape up have so far chosen not to
publicly intervene. People just take it for granted that places
like Yosemite are being taken care of, Rao says. Around

(06:59):
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.
Rao quit soon after. She has since traveled to a
series of other national parks, posting videos about her experiences
for her substantial YouTube following. Despite everything she went through,

(07:20):
she still loves these places. It's so cool that we're
able to have all these amenities and everything 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. America's conception of
a national park was born in Yosemite from business and blood.

(07:42):
In the early eighteen fifties, a gold rush drew miners
to the valley, the homeland of the Awenichi people. State
officials raised a militia to kill and displace the Alwaniici
in the Yosemite Indian War, part of what's now called
the California Genocide. In the years after, a few squatters
began operating hotels in the valley. By the time President

(08:03):
Abraham Lincoln signed the Yosemite Act in eighteen sixty four,
donating thirty nine thousand acres of the valley and its
environs to the state of California for public use, resort,
and recreation, these hoteliers were well established. The modern concessionaire
began to take shape in the eighteen nineties after John
Muir and other early conservationists pushed the federal government to

(08:25):
reclaim ownership of the park and clear out the garbage,
and the Curry family opened its tent village not far
from where Rao would stay more than a century later.
In the nineteen tens, Moarax millionaire Stephen Mather successfully lobbied
for the creation of the National Park Service and became
its first leader. At Yosemite, he oversaw construction of the Iwanee,

(08:47):
which opened in nineteen twenty seven and is considered a
masterpiece of the parchitecture style, which often employs native materials
like whole logs and stone. An oft repeated quote by
mather sums up his development friendly park's philosophy. Scenery is
a hollow enjoyment to a tourist who sets out in
the morning after an indigestible breakfast and a fitful sleep

(09:09):
on an impossible bed. During this period, park's stewards sought
to expand the ways visitors could enjoy the scenery, including
with attractions that seem by today's standards bananas. Until the
nineteen forties, when the NPS made them stop, concessionaires kept
bleachers set up around the on site dump and encouraged
tourists to watch bears eat garbage and fight for scraps.

(09:32):
In the nineteen sixties, President John F. Kennedy was among
the visitors who looked on from below as workers disposed
of hot coals by shoving the flaming embers off of
Glacier Point, creating a waterfall like spectacle known as firefall.
Concessionaires had been doing this most nights were close to
a century by then, and continued until Lyndon Johnson's parks

(09:53):
chief swore off the practice. Later that decade. It was unnatural,
he said. Moreover, it was too popular. The crowds that
flocked to see each firefall trampled the grounds and clogged
the roads. Around this time, Congress passed the first in
a series of laws that have more or less guaranteed
concessionaires the upper hand in negotiations with the parks. The

(10:15):
Concession's Policy Act, developed under pressure from the industry, gave
concessionaires contract terms of as long as thirty years, preferential
contract renewal, and a right of compensation for property improvements.
The NPS was forced to see the vast majority of
park profits to concessionaires in exchange for as little as
point seventy five percent of gross revenue, according to historian

(10:39):
Alfred Runt. More recent legislation has whittled away some of
those sweeteners, but park insiders say the industry is still
firmly in charge. Yosemite is among America's most lucrative and
popular parks, with almost four million visitors accounting for roughly
one hundred and forty million dollars in annual concessions revenue.
The NPS has a three point five billion dollar annual budget,

(11:02):
a twenty one billion dollar maintenance backlog and little power
to punish a disappointing contractor. If you kick them out,
then what do you do? Asks John Jarvis, who ran
the Park Service during the Obama years. We don't have
rangers to change bed linends. When Aramark took over Yosemite
in twenty sixteen, it seemed in some ways as if

(11:22):
it were an upgrade the previous concessionaire, Delaware North Companies,
outraged park aficionados by squeezing the NPS for millions of
dollars before it signed over the rights to the names
of several lodges. Delaware North is proud of the hospitality
and guest experience we provided for twenty three years at Yosemite,
the company said in a statement. To avoid further conflict

(11:45):
while that dispute was in litigation, the Park Service temporarily
switched out signs around the park. The Owane became the
Majestic Yosemite Hotel, and Curry Village Half Dome Village. Aramark,
by contrast, agreed to give the NPS a bigger share
of its revenue eleven point seventy five percent versus single

(12:05):
digits under Delaware North. Complete hundreds of overdue maintenance tasks,
make upgrades to several eateries, and within two years move
seasonal employees into new housing. Yosemite is one of America's
most treasured resources and important natural preserves, and we are
excited to work with the NPS as a steward of
the park's rich history and to help shape its legacy

(12:28):
moving forward, said Bruce Fears, then president of the company's
leisure division, in a press release announcing the contract. The
excitement faded quickly. Within the first year, Aramark was laying
off Yosemite staff, including many of the longtime managers whose
knowledge kept the place running. The NPS provides basic infrastructure

(12:49):
and law enforcement, and it manages trails, interpretation programs, and
the hundreds of thousands of acres of wilderness within park boundaries,
but Aramark is responsible for the majority of visitors services
in the seven mile long one mile wide valley, where
tourists flock and most employees work. Its remit includes nine
lodging options, twenty three restaurants and cafes, fifteen gift shops

(13:12):
and grocery stores, a shuttle system, mule and horseback rides,
a ski, mountain and mountaineering school, four swimming pools, three
gas stations, an on call tow truck service, and a
golf course. I don't think they realized they were going
to be managing a city, says Bob Seddon, a retired
California Highway Patrol supervisor who worked as a seasonal driver

(13:34):
in Yosemite from twenty eleven to twenty eighteen. Visitors noticed
when wait times for the shuttles between lodges and trailheads
began to tick up from the advertised twenty to thirty
minutes to more like forty five. According to its twenty
eighteen NPS evaluation, Aramark failed to hire the appropriate number
of drivers to make use of the entire fleet. There

(13:56):
were fewer maintenance technicians on staff two. The result ELTs
more breakdowns, more overcrowding, and more visitors left stranded in
the middle of the park. At one point, apparently not
knowing what else to do, a crowd of people tried
to force a bus to halt by forming a human
chain in the road. Federal documents show. In twenty nineteen,

(14:17):
when the transit system was finally stabilizing, Aramark got into
worse trouble when an aurovirus outbreak sickened more than one
hundred visitors and employees. The company didn't report the situation
to the Park Service right away, a violation of its contract.
The source of the outbreak wasn't identified, but the NPS
later found the Aramark run kitchens in need of improvement.

(14:40):
The company also failed to report a bedbug infestation in
an employee dorm for the second year in a row.
The NPS evaluations rated Aramark's work at Yosemite as marginal
grounds to terminate its contract according to NPS policy. Instead,
Yosemite's superintendent, Cecily Muldoon exercised her authority to adjust the

(15:01):
company's score. She bumped its official rating up to satisfactory
because of strong collaboration exhibited by Yosemite Hospitality in a
public health crisis. In a statement, Muldoon's office didn't respond
to requests to explain the score change, but it said
in PSS committed to keeping contractors policies in line with
its own high standards. We worked diligently to identify and

(15:23):
document issues and expect our concessioners to identify and implement solutions,
a spokesperson said in a statement. Aramark was making some
of its promised renovations during this time. By twenty twenty,
it had remodeled the main food court at Yosemite Valley
Lodge and a sandwich shop in Yosemite Village. It was
at work on other repairs when the COVID nineteen lockdown closed.

(15:46):
The park Yosemite reopened that June after less than three months,
but its concessions revenue fell by almost fifty percent on
the year while tourists stayed home. Aramark laid off or
furloughed large numbers of employees. According to its twenty twenty
NPS evaluation, the cuts included contractually required positions, including the

(16:08):
maintenance coordinator, and remaining workers were left struggling to keep
up with repairs and administration because park housing was tied
to employment. Ahramark also evicted dozens of these workers from
their dorms and cabins during the pandemic, including a number
of elderly staff who had nowhere else to go. Not
long after, a video posted to social media showed the

(16:30):
company's vice president of operations hitting a golf ball into
a protected meadow that hit the rock. He jokes in
the video, referring to half dome in the distance in
the company's annual evaluation, park officials noted that while this
executive was quickly terminated, the incident indicated a lack of
understanding or respect for the mission of the National Park Service.

(16:52):
Aramark also struggled to address far more serious problems during
this period. While the park was shut down. In early
twenty twenty, an Airamark employee who'd remained on site was
sleeping in his cabin when a coworker sneaked in and
began to sexually assault the victim, biding and punching him
during the attack. According to a US Department of Justice statement,

(17:13):
the victim managed to escape and reported the assault to
an Aramark housing supervisor, who then reported it to a manager.
Federal documents show, but then weeks went by in which
the housing manager took no further action until the victim
went directly to the concessioner's human resources division. The company's
subsequent MPs evaluation states this constituted a lack of reporting

(17:35):
of a known or suspected violation of law as required
by the contract. The assailant was eventually sentenced to more
than twelve years in prison. Asked how Aramark handled his case,
the victim who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear
of reprisals, says they didn't. We'll be right back with
more of parks and degradation. Welcome back to parks and degradation.

(18:04):
Things kept spiraling down from there. In twenty twenty one,
several bears had to be euthanized after repeatedly breaking into
a food cooler and then wandering into a park hotel.
The Park Service also found Ahramark had been using two
rooms in the Iwanee that the agency had ordered to
be kept offline due to proximity to nearby water damage

(18:24):
and concerns for additional ceiling collapse and mold growth. In
twenty twenty two, Ahramark employees spilled five hundred gallons of glycol,
the potentially toxic main ingredient in antifreeze, at the skating
rink at Curry Village, less than five hundred feet from
the river. In twenty twenty three, a chunk of ceiling
fell on an employee while guests were dining at the Owanee.

(18:48):
Another worker said she steered clear of the area for days,
fearing additional fallout. A few months later, a railing on
the porch around the landmark Wawona Hotel collapsed when a
visitor leaned on it, injuring her when she fell to
the ground. Once again, Aramark failed to report the incident
to NPS, but the visitor's mother did report it, describing

(19:08):
the railing as completely rotted. Last winter, a heavy round
of layoffs reduced maintenance staff further. One worker who requested
anonymity for fear of losing their job, estimated that Aramark
cut half the department. The company, which scored marginal again
in twenty twenty two and twenty twenty three, is just
not fixing things, says Steve Olman, who recently retired from

(19:31):
running concessionaire maintenance departments, including for Delaware North's version of Yosemite.
The twenty twenty three evaluation rattles off a litany of
damaged assets around the park, including railings, walkways, staircases, roofs,
and gutters, as well as problems with Aramark's long response
times to issues the NPS flagged for repair. The company

(19:53):
just started meeting with NPS last year about potential designs
for the seasonal employee housing that its contract had demanded
be ready by twenty eighteen. Ulman suspects it will never
be built. I think they know damn well, they're not
going to do it. He says. They're in there to
get all the money they can and get out. In
her statement, Weinstein, the Aramark spokesperson, acknowledged some difficulties but

(20:17):
not an exit strategy. Employee housing in Yosemite Valley has
been historically challenging, requiring special considerations for many legacy structures.
She said. We are working in partnership within PS to
improve living conditions and construct new accommodations within the guidelines
for historic preservation. Neglect in many forms has made Yosemite

(20:39):
more dangerous, but chronic understaffing is the most visible problem.
At a glance on the trip advisor page for the Alwani,
where visitors pay upwards of five hundred dollars a night,
reviewers describe waiting long after check in to get into
their rooms. One expresses shock at being charged five star
prices for a buffet dinner of college dining room quality.

(21:02):
Another compares the vibe of the once opulent hotel to
that of the withered Miss Havisham from great expectations. Water
damage is visibly decaying the lounge's historic frescoes, and the
section where a chunk fell onto a worker is still
closed off more than a year later. The experience is
total garbage, says Sam Kaiser, a retiree from Simi Valley

(21:23):
who visits Yosemite with her husband multiple times a year.
The difference between what Airmark has done to the park
and what the previous concessionaires have done is night and day.
At the Wowona Hotel, where the Kaisers stayed for years,
housekeeping fell off so sharply that the couple started bringing
their own cleaning supplies to deal with the bathrooms, then
stopped staying on site altogether. Things aren't much better elsewhere

(21:47):
in the park. Three former employees of the Yosemite Lodge,
a mid century motel where reservations start around two hundred
and thirty dollars a night, same managers continued to book
people in rooms where workers report bedbugs. One former housekeeper,
who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation,
shared a video of a brown colored liquid pouring out

(22:09):
of a carpet cleaning machine directly onto the earth. He
says managers told him to discard gallons of liquid soap
by pouring it into a dumpster on park property, which
then leaked and frothed whenever it rained. Another lodge worker
says they've seen peroxides spilled into the soil. This June,
workers discovered a rat infestation in the kitchen of the

(22:30):
Iwanee Bar. Managers instructed an employee to spray bleach on
the area without safety gear, releasing sickening fumes that caused
another worker to break out in hives. According to one
eye witness, Yosemite is a uniquely complicated place to manage.
Unlike most other parks in the system, it houses year
round employees as well as an influx of seasonal workers.

(22:53):
Many of its buildings are more than a century old,
and complains about lousy food and high prices are par
for the core national park tourism. Other concessionaires aren't exactly beloved,
but Aramark appears to be in a class of its own.
It's continued to receive subpar grades at several parks, while
Xanterra Parks and Resorts, which runs lodging at Glacier, Yellowstone,

(23:15):
and most of the Grand Canyon and Delaware North Kings Canyon, Sequoia, Shenandoah,
have scored mostly satisfactory or superior, as at Yosemite. Aramark
has repeatedly scored marginal at Michigan's Isle Royale and Oregon's
Crater Lake. At the latter, where a string of visitors
sustained serious injuries and five thousand gallons of raw sewage

(23:38):
spilled into a creek, things got bad enough that one
of the state's US senators, Democrat Ron Wyden, called for
a federal review. Earlier this year, the NPS transferred aramarks
contract at the park, which was supposed to last through
twenty thirty, to a new steward. Crater Lake's new concessionaire
is a privately owned firm called explore Us, which operates lodging,

(24:01):
restaurants and marinas at a number of smaller national and
state parks. On its website, the company describes its specialty
as turning around underperforming concessions. I was gratified that the
National Park Service acted upon my concerns, Widen said in
a statement, and believe any similar concerns about concessionaires at
other national parks deserve serious scrutiny to protect both staff

(24:24):
and visitors. Tom McClintock, the US representative whose district includes
Yosemite says canceling Aramarks contract should definitely be an option
for NPS given the company's challenges meeting its obligations. But
he also said in PS policies limiting visitor attendants, such
as Yosemite's reservation system, have driven down revenue for the company,

(24:45):
making it harder to operate effectively. If those underlying policy
problems aren't addressed, are we going to get a better
performance out of a different concessionaire, he asks. California Governor
Gavin Newsom's office declined to comment about the park. Lafonza
Butler and Alex Padilla, Wyden's counterparts in the Senate, didn't
respond to requests for comment. Aramark seems to be feeling

(25:09):
some pressure at Yosemite. In its statement, the company listed
several repair and construction projects and noted it has replaced
top executives, including the regional vice president for Aramark's leisure division,
who not long ago won the company award for delivering
profitable growth. During a visit right after Memorial Day, several
hotels in the park were under some form of renovation.

(25:32):
A number of maintenance workers have been rehired, and some
managers have even apologized to employees for the inadequate staffing.
The mantra for everyone in Yosemite right now, as far
as management goes, is don't be crater Lake, says another worker,
who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of losing
their job. Cancelation doesn't appear imminent at Yosemite, but Aramark's

(25:55):
most recent evaluation there does suggest the park service is
paying attention. Muldoom, the Yosemite superintendent, downgraded the company's twenty
twenty three rating from satisfactory to marginal due to unnecessary
accruing of deferred maintenance, unacceptable risk of damage to park resources,
and other issues. Still, park leaders are hoping for a turnaround.

(26:18):
We appreciate and recognize the positive changes that Yosemite Hospitality
has made so far in twenty twenty four under new leadership,
and we will continue to monitor the concessioner's work for
compliance with contract requirements. A park spokesman said in an email.
We value our partnership and look forward to working together
to continue to improve the visitor experience at Yosemite National Park.

(26:42):
Given that the problems are on some level built into
the structure of the NPS, I think it needs a complete,
radical reform, says Jarvis, the former director. The National Park
Service Centennial Act from twenty fifteen lays some groundwork to
level the playing field with concessionaires. He says, it gives
the agency brought authority to award new contracts without specifying

(27:04):
how they should be structured, unlike earlier laws that set
narrow terms favoring businesses. With more funding and enforcement teeth,
the NPS could shift the balance of power back to
the land it's bound to protect for the enjoyment of
future generations. But for change like that to happen, there
needs to be pressure from political leadership, Jarvis says, and

(27:24):
therefore ultimately from the American people. After all, the parks
are supposed to be for them, and Jarvis says they
should be pissed off. That postcard perfect view of Yosemite's
grandeur may not have changed much over the centuries, but
a visitor's experience of a park is about its cultural
trappings too. Some argue that park stewardship should be returned

(27:46):
to the tribes that originally inhabited them. The original law
governing the NPS says parks must be maintained in absolutely
unimpaired form for the use of future generations, and that
national interest might us dictate all decisions affecting public or
private enterprise. That means the Park Service is responsible to
Jarvis notes. It says, do whatever you can do with

(28:10):
whatever power you have to ensure that these places are
preserved for the next generation, and clearly they're not living
up to it. The White House didn't respond to requests
for comment, nor did the Harris or Trump campaigns. For now,
the sorts of free spirits and nature lovers who often
wind up working in the parks have had little recourse
besides social media. Last September, an ex Aramark employee using

(28:34):
the handle Mayanoelia posted a viral TikTok detailing the conditions
she endured as a barista in the park, crowded housing,
unsanitary food prep areas, a lack of protection when wildfires
polluted the air. In June, another former employee, James Blaylock,
who started posting on TikTok under the shared handle Fixed
the Park, revealed broken fence posts, cracked sidewalks, and litter

(28:58):
strewn around Yosemite's rest jawantson hotels leave no trace, That's
what we say here, he says in one video, too
bad the concessionaire of hospitality doesn't seem to give a shit.
Working in Aramarx Yosemite seems to bring out this kind
of candor in even the crunchiest of park employees. Rao,
who doesn't think she'll work at a national park again,

(29:20):
wants the government to play a stronger role in protecting
their natural and cultural resources, as well as the safety
of employee working and living conditions. Recounting her experience in
a YouTube video about her illness, she speaks in the
same upbeat tone she uses to describe her custom van
or her healthy time in Cambodia. Yet she has her limits.

(29:42):
I feel like I try to spin it positively, she says,
but honestly it was hell. Aramarks sucks.