Campsites closed in redwood forests. Schoolchildren shut out of field trips to historic sites like Sutter's Fort. Padlocks on parking lots at glimmering beaches.
This week, state parks officials are expected to release a list of up to 100 California parks that will be closed to save money, and the impacts will be felt far and wide.
But one prominent casualty, historians and parks experts say, could very well be the environmental legacy of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who worked hard to build green credentials, yet will become the only governor in the 108-year history of California's state parks system to ever close a park to balance the budget.
"It has an element of weariness like he has given up, like he is taking the path of least resistance," said David Kennedy, a Pulitzer Prize-winning historian at Stanford University. "It is not going to go down well in history."
Since he was elected in 2003, Schwarzenegger has signed America's first law requiring a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. He championed the "Million Solar Roofs Initiative," opposed offshore oil drilling when President George W. Bush advocated for it, and required 33 percent of the state's electricity to come from renewable sources by 2020.
"His environmental record stands on its own," said Jeff Macedo, a Schwarzenegger spokesman. "He had to make choices he didn't want to make."
California's modern park system began in 1901, when Gov. Henry Gage, a Republican, signed a bill establishing Big Basin Redwoods State Park in Santa Cruz County. During the Great Depression, Republican Govs. C.C. Young and "Sunny Jim" Rolph not only kept parks open, but used low land prices to expand the parks system.
Today conservatives and liberals are proud of the places they protected because they symbolize the best of California, said Joseph Engbeck, author of "State Parks of California: From 1864 to Present." Those 1930s acquisitions became Pfeiffer Big Sur, Point Lobos, Mount Diablo, Seacliff Beach, Armstrong Redwoods, San Clemente Beach and dozens of other landmark state parks.
"If you actually close these parks, you are going to see a huge protest," Engbeck said. "They are iconic places for most Californians."
Schwarzenegger made cuts to prisons, universities and health programs. But few budget acts may affect as many middle-class voters as closing state parks.
Faced with a $24 billion deficit amid plummeting tax revenues, Schwarzenegger proposed eliminating all $143 million in state general fund money to parks, which would have closed 220 of California's 279 state parks. The Legislature restored all but $8 million. Last month, the governor cut $6.2 million more with a line-item veto.
State parks director Ruth Coleman raised entrance fees and searched for partnerships with counties and cities. She announced there was no other way to make ends meet but to close up to 100 parks, and the governor's office has not overruled her.
One solution did surface. When Democrats in the state Assembly proposed a $15 annual increase on vehicle registrations this summer to fund parks, Schwarzenegger opposed it, along with other Republicans, and it died.
"Not every Californian uses state parks. So tying it to them registering their cars isn't exactly a fee; it's a tax," said Macedo.
One former state parks director said rejecting the surcharge and allowing park closures show a lack of vision.
"I would see it as a blot on his environmental record, without question. It's very unfortunate," said Donald Murphy, state parks director from 1992 to 1997 under former Gov. Pete Wilson.
"It's indicative of poor management, bad priorities,'' Murphy said. "Years from now when he is smoking a cigar in his living room, I think Gov. Schwarzenegger will regret having made this decision."
When Wilson came into office in 1991 during a recession, he inherited a similar deficit of $14 billion on a $43 billion general fund. Rather than close parks, Murphy and Resources Secretary Doug Wheeler raised fees and cut layers of park management.
There are few cuts like that left to make. A Mercury News review last year found the number of state park employees - 2,970 rangers, lifeguards and others - has remained unchanged since 1988 even as the number of state park visitors has grown by 5.3 million people. The maintenance backlog for state parks now totals $1.2 billion.
Noted historian Kevin Starr of the University of Southern California said much of the blame should fall on voters, for approving bonds without wanting to pay the taxes to service them, and for voting in term limits and strict ideologues who have refused to compromise.
"Does it take closing the parks to get a spoiled, politically lazy public to pay attention to state government?'' Starr asked. "Californians want everything, but they don't want to pay for it."
Potentially on the list are Sutter's Fort in Sacramento and Donner Memorial State Park near Lake Tahoe, both of which were first preserved by the Native Sons of the Golden West, a historic society founded in 1875.
"It's really a shame that it has to come to this, that the government has to take away something from the population that is basically theirs," said Gene Perry, of Petaluma, president of the Native Sons.
"We need to get young people interested in our history, and now we are going to lose that. It may not be fair, but unless he finds a way out, Schwarzenegger is gonna be the fall guy for this."
Contact Paul Rogers at 408-920-5045.