National parks appear to have weathered summer tourism storm despite cuts Trevor Hughes, USA TODAYSeptember 21, 2025 at 5:01 AM 0 ESTES PARK, COLORADO ‒ As her kids danced their stuffed animals around a 3D map of Rocky Mountain National Park's peaks and valleys, Chrissy Whissler began ticking off al...
- - National parks appear to have weathered summer tourism storm despite cuts
Trevor Hughes, USA TODAYSeptember 21, 2025 at 5:01 AM
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ESTES PARK, COLORADO ‒ As her kids danced their stuffed animals around a 3D map of Rocky Mountain National Park's peaks and valleys, Chrissy Whissler began ticking off all the national parks she and her family visited this year: Nine so far, with at least three more planned before year's end.
While she tallied, her green Guadalupe Mountains National Park souvenir sweatshirt swung open, revealing a T-shirt from Bryce Canyon National Park.
A Los Angeles mom who homeschools her kids, 13 and 10, via experiential learning, Whissler said she entered this year with safety concerns about how widespread staffing cuts by the Trump administration might impact national parks ‒ places she treasures.
1 / 21Inspiring National Park wildlife: Moose, elk and bald eaglesWatched and photographed by human visitors, a resident bull moose walks through Sprague Lake in Rocky Mountain National Park on Sept. 15, 2025.
But after a summer of adventures, Whissler is glad to report her fears about staffing cuts were largely unfounded: "We definitely had a bit of a toilet issue in Yosemite but they corrected that the next day."
President Donald Trump's administration has slashed staffing across the park service , and longtime park advocates and frequent users worried the cuts would lead to messy parks and dirty bathrooms.
Despite widespread fears of a systemwide collapse by some public activists and advocates, America's national parks appear to have weathered the bulk of the summer tourist season largely unscathed. Following the elimination of more than 25% of staff jobs, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum ordered park superintendents to prioritize visitor-facing services.
A National Park Service ranger waves to a sewage vacuum truck headed into Rocky Mountain National Park on Sept. 15, 2025. Despite fears of maintenance problems, visitors reported relatively few problems in parks across the country following budget and staffing cuts under President Donald Trump.
While there have been isolated reports of problems, visitors saw few systemic issues. Instead, they marveled at redwoods and giant sequoias, hiked through slot canyons and up Yosemite's Half Dome, snapped photos of elk and moose in Rocky Mountain National Park, and watched the stars swirl overhead at Agate Fossil Beds National Monument in Nebraska.
And there's also no evidence that routine maintenance has ground to a halt. Among other items, federal purchasing records show projects underway to buy 40 new picnic tables in Great Smoky Mountains National Park, paint a cedar shingle roof at James A. Garfield National Historic Site, and buy two new snowblowers for Crater Lake National Park.
Behind the scenes, concerns about national park staff shortages
But behind the scenes, park advocacy groups and some staff members said all is not well in the country's national parks.
Park advocacy groups who have criticized the Trump budget cuts say remaing park staff hustled to keep visitors happy and safe, but the workload is unsustainable, especially as seasonal employees begin leaving in the coming weeks.
Park workers consulted by USA TODAY said budget analysts have been sitting in entrance booths, scientists have been "volunteered" to help run visitor centers, and in one park, archeologists are being trained to drive boats because the park hasn't been authorized to hire captains.
Other job losses are essentially invisible to park visitors, such as regional environmental coordinators or climate-change policy experts. Legally, national parks are required to study and preserve their landscapes and sites, and shifting focus to visitor experiences means some decades-old research projects are being put on hold or dropped entirely.
Chrissy Whissler of Los Angeles counts on her hands the number of national parks she's visited, while visiting Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado on Sept. 15, 2025.
"The park service and park staff made incredible attempts to do what they needed to do to keep park visitation great, and it should haven't have to be like that," said Sarah Lundstrom, a parks visitation expert with the nonprofit National Parks Conservation Association. "It's been a kind of a façade of a visitor experience, but parks aren't just for the summer. They are forever, but for this year, the summer worked."
She's particularly worried about the future.
"With losing a quarter of your staff and not being able to hire to replace them, what does next year look like? What does this fall even look like, when all the seasonal workers are gone?" asked Lundstrom.
The National Park Service did not respond to multiple requests for comment on maintenance, staffing or park visitation. A USA TODAY review of preliminary visitor data indicates visitation at many parks is up or flat so far for 2025.
Park visitors remain happy despite cuts
On a sunny day about 8,231 feet above sea level in Rocky Mountain National Park, first-time visitors Jake Kundert, 33, and Sarah Joaquin, 24, said the park's soaring peaks lived up to expectations. They also reported no problems with the park's timed entry reservation system, which had been their big concern when planning their trip from New Hampshire. The couple, visiting for a wedding, said they were unaware of staffing concerns caused by Trump's cuts.
Sarah Joaquin holds an elk antler to her head while Jake Kundert takes a photo at Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado on Sept. 15, 2025.
In addition to searching for moose, elk and other wildlife, the couple drove over Trail Ridge Road, which is the highest paved through-road in the United States, topping out at 12,183 feet above sea level.
"Everything seemed pretty clean. I mean some of the toilets were a little dirty but that's to be expected," said Joaquin.
Added Kundert: "I mean, it's not like you expect running water at the top of the mountain."
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Staffing cuts at national parks had little apparent impact
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