The Mountaineers
Last week, the new administration fired 10% of the Forest Service’s workforce, alongside thousands of employees from other public land managers, including the National Park Service. These workers do essential on-the-ground work, such as trail maintenance and cleaning facilities, that keep our public lands open, safe, and accessible.
Eliminating these roles will directly impact Mountaineers programs, our community’s outdoor recreation experiences, and access to public lands. While we’re still learning more about the impacts locally, if these cuts are not reversed, we expect facility closures, unmaintained trails, and resource damage. Our land managers are already underfunded and short staffed, and these recent terminations will make it even harder for agencies to care for our national forests and parks.
Public lands and waters - and the dedicated employees who steward them - are the beating heart of the outdoor experience in Washington. They are also the backbone of Washington State’s outdoor recreation economy, generating more than $26 billion per year in annual expenditures and supporting 264,000 jobs across the state. That’s why we’re calling on all Mountaineers to write to their lawmakers and ask them to push back against these devastating federal workforce cuts.
Agency Firings Threaten our Public Lands
Early numbers show that the administration fired 3,400 workers in the Forest Service nationwide, including 260 employees in Washington and Oregon, and the Park Service terminated 1,000 positions across the country. We expect to learn more about the full extent of these cuts in the coming days and weeks.
The firings mainly targeted employees classified as “probationary” who haven’t yet qualified for civil service protections. While some were new employees, many others had worked for their agencies for years and recently received promotions. They were not inexperienced or low performers, which is how their terminations were relayed to them. Rather, they were dedicated employees who worked long hours in the backcountry at modest pay. They were people The Mountaineers has relied upon for years to issue permits, patrol Wilderness Areas, and maintain trails.
This is the second major reduction in staffing the Forest Service has faced in the past six months, on top of years of declining funding. Meanwhile, the Park Service has seen a 20% reduction in full-time staff over the last 15 years, even as visitation has risen by 16% during the same period. Both agencies are also feeling the impacts of the current government-wide hiring freeze, an action that has already caused land managers to rescind critical seasonal job offers.
We won’t sugarcoat it - eliminating these roles will directly impact the quality of outdoor recreation in Washington and put public lands at risk. Many of these cuts disproportionately affect on-the-ground staff who do the work you see when you’re recreating in the Pacific Northwest: they maintain trails, manage campgrounds and facilities, clean bathrooms, pick up trash and human waste, support search and rescue operations, educate the public, and so much more. The work they do is essential.
An Immediate Impact to Public Lands and Recreation
Closures and other impacts to recreation are already popping up across the Pacific Northwest as a direct result of the large-scale termination of Forest Service employees. The Franklin Falls and Denny Creek trailheads near Snoqualmie Pass are closed indefinitely, and the Forest Service has halted grooming at the Salmon La Sac Sno-Park for the foreseeable future. We expect to see more local impacts moving forward.
The summer season, an especially busy time for Mountaineers courses and for recreation in general, could be particularly affected by these mass firings. In the Enchantments, the entire wilderness and trail crew was fired. These staff maintained 30 backcountry toilets and packed out 1,000 piles of improperly disposed human waste each season in one of the busiest and most fragile recreation areas in Washington.
On the Mount Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest, the Seattle Times reported that about 30% of the workforce was fired. This forest is the most popular and visited recreation area for our courses and programs. We’re concerned that these staffing cuts may lead to closures of popular trails and campgrounds, shuttered and understaffed visitor centers, and overflowing toilets.
These layoffs were designed to eliminate inefficiency in the federal government and lead to cost savings. But laying off probationary and early-career employees doesn’t eliminate efficiency - it cuts off the future workforce. And firing probationary employees won’t save the federal government much money. Many Forest Service trail crew employees make less than $22 an hour. Sadly, much of the economic impact of these job cuts will disproportionately land on rural communities, where job options are already harder to come by.
Beyond recreation, these cuts could lead to a massive shortage of personnel fighting wildfires. Region 6 of the Forest Service, which spans much of the Pacific Northwest, doesn’t have a large fire program. Instead, they rely on qualified agency staff from other programs to step up and help with fires - many of whom were terminated last week. This will stretch firefighting resources even thinner this year, and could increase the risk of uncontrolled wildfires on public lands and in nearby communities.
Take Action
The Mountaineers is working with our partners to reverse these damaging staff reductions. Without adequate staffing and resources, our experiences outside, our ability to lead trips, the health of our public lands, and the outdoor recreation economy will suffer. Congress and the administration must take urgent action to protect the workforce that keeps our public lands safe, accessible, and well cared for.
This is a critical moment for all of us to take a stand. We cannot allow the future of our public lands and outdoor experiences to be jeopardized by shortsighted budget cuts. Write a personalized letter to your lawmakers today and urge them to fight these devastating layoffs, especially the loss of crucial on-the-ground staff.
This important work wouldn't be possible without the support of Mountaineers like you. If you’re called to stand with us in support of the public lands you cherish and the land managers that steward them, please consider a gift to our conservation and advocacy fund.
In the coming weeks, we’ll share a blog highlighting other executive orders and policy announcements that directly affect the lands and waters we love in the Pacific Northwest.
