Hidden gems, scenic stays, parks worth traveling
The national park is expected to see a record crowd as more people visited the road this summer. But if you are trying to escape the crowds, our Ali Reed has discovered some hidden gems worth exploring.
Americans will find clean toilets, personnel visitor centers and tidy trailheads this anniversary weekend as Americans kick off summer at national parks and the U.S. Forest Service trailhead.
But longtime public land advocates say it’s only a matter of time before rangers begin to see the cracks in what campers, hikers and anglers believe are thin façades of wafers, as they scream to catch up after widespread layoffs, retirements and acquisitions. Public land supporters are worried that the Trump administration will use subsequent issues as justifications to close, sell or relocate parks and land to private operators.
When Trump took office, 2024 was the busiest year of visiting historical parks, and despite last year’s 332 million visitors, Park Service staff was already 20% lower than in 2010.
“What this leads is like where there are 1,000 deaths,” said Josh Hicks, director of the Wilderness Association’s Conservation Campaign. “They might be trying to put it on a facade where everything is swimming, but it’s not really the case, and there’s going to be a slow degradation of public land.”
Park workers compared to “a thin rubber band that is quite stretched”
The National Park Service manages more than 84 million acres of land, ranging from the small Gateway Arch National Park in St. Louis, Missouri, to the 13.2 million acres of Wrangelcent. Elias National Park & Preserve in Alaska. The Forest Service manages another 193 million acres, which is bigger than the rest of Texas.
Since taking office, Trump and his administration have fired thousands of Parks and Forest Service employees, implemented employment freezes, delayed planned employment of seasonal workers essential to visitor centers, maintained trails and cleaned toilets. But at the same time, Interior Ministry Director Doug Burgum ordered the park manager to keep campsites, visitor centres and toilets open.
The National Park Service did not respond to requests from USA Today to explain summer staffing and maintenance plans. The Home Office declined to comment on staffing cuts.
At Yellowstone National Park, where the wildlife season is on track, Guide Service owner Cara McGary said the toilets remain clean and well stocked. McGurry, a former park ranger whose partner is an Alaska ranger, operates on our Nature Guide Service. She said that she is home to 800 people in Gardiner, Montana, and almost all have connections to Yellowstone.
McGarry said appointments for her guide service have been up. She suspects that some customers are about to visit before the actual Trump-related cuts take effect. Other public land supporters say bookings were slower than usual due to the trade war between Trump and Canada.
“I think it’s fine if I can get through the spring sprint, but what will happen in September?” McGarry asked. “We have a legacy of people who give the federal government more than 100%. They are rubber bands that are already quite stretched. And we’re trying to push them even further.”
McGarry said Yellowstone is facing decisions on how to handle bathroom breaks if he can’t keep his toilet clean when he’s looking for wolves, bears and other wildlife. Things remained endured as McGarry and other park supporters held “guerrilla” toilet cleaning during the 2018-2019 federal government closures, but she fears things will get worse this summer.
“I don’t know how screwed we are, but I think there will be consequences,” she said. “It sucks. I won’t win this.”
Don’t forget to bring your own water
Just a few miles from one of the country’s richest zip cords, the scenic area of Maroon Bell is surrounded by towering mountains, with aspen trees coated the hillsides and a quiet lake that reflects the sun.
However, while five-star Aspen hotels, including Littlenell and Hotel Jerome, offer almost all possible amenities, this year’s Maroon Bells visitors will have to bring their own water from the town 26 miles away.
U.S. Forest Service employees usually ensure that more than 300,000 visitors per year have access to both toilets and drinking water when they arrive at Maroon Bells Trailhead.
“The man, the wealthiest country in the world, should fund public land that everyone has access to at the basic level,” said Scott Fitzwilliams, who oversees the region as the White River National Forest supervisor. Fitzwilliams left his job in February as the Trump administration began layoffs and job cuts across the Forest Service.
White River Forest features ski areas such as Aspen, Vail and Beaver Creek, with hundreds of miles of hiking and mountain biking trails, dozens of campsites and countless sparkling lakes for fishing.
Fitzwilliams said he expects many pit toilets in the forest to be discharged from four times this summer. He said his successor also planned to bring in student workers this summer to help with maintenance and trail clearing, but Elon Musk’s Doge team approval was too late to make it work this year.
“It’ll be mid- to late summer before people start seeing it, but it’ll be pretty profound,” he predicted. “We might get one (toilet) pump that year. It’s going to get ugly.”
Like other public land experts, Fitzwilliams also said he was worried about what would happen during wildfire season. Typically, a national incident management team is made up of workers from public lands across the country. People who work on other days but are seconded to the fire team during a large fire. Trump’s cuts have resulted in a dramatic decline in the number of both firefighters and firefighters’ supervisors in both national parks and national forests, he said.
“The long-term impact from the middle of the future will not be good, and the public will really see it and suffer the consequences,” he said.
Risks to visitors, public lands and economic vitality
National parks in particular, public lands in general are one of the most popular features of the federal government, polls show. Trust in public land in a recent survey conducted by YouGov found that 74% of Americans opposed the closure of public land, 63% opposed layoffs and 62% opposed fund cuts. TPL pointed out that this overwhelming reputation should allow federal leaders to rethink budget cuts.
“Simply put, there are few rangers, wildlife and conservation experts, and stewards on the ground — just when they need them the most,” Public Land CEO Carrie Bethe Hauser told USA Today. “This is not just a risk to the visitor’s experience, but also to the health of our lands and the economic vitality of our rural and gateway communities, from Maine to Florida, Texas and Hawaii. Our public lands are more than beautiful places.
But given the realities on the ground, Cassidy Jones, a former park service ranger who currently works for the Nonprofit National Park Conservation Association, said her friends and former colleagues are all preparing to do their best to serve the public as the summer season increases.
Like McGarry, Jones asked visitors to the Park and the Forest to be as understandable and ready this summer, and to be prepared to see something like the park’s supervisors working at the Visitor Center. Other parks report that wildlife biologists are planning to clean toilets or have office staff cycling for campsite management.
“Most parks may feel very typical on the surface, but a lot is happening in the background,” Jones said. “The unfortunate end for visitors is that they are being fed to the vision of this park, a business, as usual, but it will be very far behind the scenes.”
