Firings, resignations and delays in seasonal hiring have clouded the coming vacation season at the 433 sites and 85 million acres managed by the National Park Service. Parks are already closing campgrounds, cutting hours and reducing services, and insiders are predicting a challenging summer.
Weeks after President Trump took office, the administration abruptly dismissed more than 1,000 permanent, full-time N.P.S. workers, and at least 700 more took buyouts. The park service usually operates with about 20,000 total employees, including approximately 7,000 seasonal workers.
Conflicting court rulings have since reinstated laid-off employees and then given the government permission to fire them again. Another round of buyouts announced in early April could increase the total number of staff departures to around 2,500, according to Kristen Brengel, senior vice president for government affairs at the National Parks Conservation Association. On top of all this, many of the reinstated employees have simply decided not to return to their posts.
The chaos comes after the national parks, already chronically underfunded, welcomed a record 332 million visitors last year. This summer is likely to bring bigger crowds, longer entry waits, closed trails, uncleaned toilets, uncollected trash and more.
If you go, plan ahead to avoid headaches: Buy a single-park or federal lands pass at recreation.gov in advance, and don’t wait to make reservations: Prime campsites and popular tours are already booking up.
Officials at the individual parks either declined to comment or referred questions about the cuts to N.P.S. leadership, which did not offer specific responses. But through dozens of interviews and exchanges with tour guides, former park workers, elected officials and others, we compiled tips for visiting 10 of the most popular national parks in this summer of uncertainty.
Acadia
In 2024, a near-record 3.96 million travelers flocked to Acadia’s rugged shorelines, spruce-fir forests, granite peaks and more than 155 miles of trails. The main attraction for many visitors is Cadillac Mountain, which requires a reservation to drive to the summit between May 21 and Oct. 26. At 1,527 feet, Cadillac is the tallest mountain on the U.S. Atlantic Coast.
The park typically needs to recruit about 150 seasonal workers, but issues like a lack of affordable housing have plagued the park for years; only four seasonal trail crew members were hired last summer, even though funding allowed for 22.
With long lines at fee stations on the horizon, arrive before 9 a.m. and score a spot at busy parking lots like the main Hulls Cove Visitor Center and Sand Beach. Travelers can also ride the free Island Explorer bus, which links sites around the park, or take Oli’s Trolley, which is expanding its tours (from $65 per person).
Grand Canyon
Because of its warm Arizona climate, Grand Canyon National Park, which drew almost five million visitors last year, attracts crowds earlier and later in the season than many other parks. Heavy spring break traffic, combined with staff cuts, has already led to waits of 90 minutes or longer at the South Entrance, said Patrice Horstman, 71, a Coconino County supervisor whose district includes the park’s South Rim area.
Because of the traffic, the Grand Canyon’s Instagram account has cautioned against using the South Entrance between 9:30 a.m. and 4 p.m., and instead recommends using the Desert View Entrance, on the east side. Scott Cundy, a co-founder of the Wildland Trekking tour company, said visitors should avoid the park on weekends, and enter from the North Rim — “an overlooked secret” — which opens on May 15.
Summer temperatures on the canyon floor routinely top 100 degrees. Visitors should always have plenty of their own water, which is scarce across most of the park.
Grand Teton
Just 10 miles south of Yellowstone National Park, in Wyoming, Grand Teton National Park attracts everyone from hard-core mountain climbers to picnickers with its dramatic peaks and pristine alpine lakes.
But summer traffic in the park can get bad — especially when drivers stop to watch grizzly bears and other animals along the roadside. Traffic jams are largely managed by a trained volunteer “wildlife brigade,” said Samantha Strauss, 29, a local tour guide for Natural Habitat Adventures.
You can leave your car in Jackson and ride a bike or an e-bike to the park (a relatively manageable five miles). Cycling the more than 50 miles of easy, mostly flat paved pathways in and around Grand Teton is a great way to see more, reduce traffic and get some exercise, she said.
Aaron Pruzan, 56, the owner of Rendezvous River Sports in Jackson, advised hiking in the middle of the day, driving late or early, and arriving before 9 a.m. at the park’s busiest spots, like Jenny Lake and Taggart Lake. Or visit lesser-known gems like String and Leigh Lakes and Schwabacher Landing.
Great Smoky Mountains
The perennial champion among the nation’s busiest national parks, Great Smoky Mountains, in Tennessee and North Carolina, logged 12.2 million visits last year.
But all those visitors may be scrambling for places to camp, picnic and hike this summer. Seven picnic sites and six easily accessible campgrounds are listed as closed on the park’s website. They have also been blocked from future reservations on recreation.gov.
Much of the North Carolina section of the park was “hit pretty hard in September by Hurricane Helene,” said Steve Woody, an emeritus board member of Friends of the Smokies, the park’s official nonprofit partner. That includes major sections of the nearby Blue Ridge Parkway.
He cautioned that several storm-damaged trails were closed or restricted. The park has 150 backcountry trails covering 848 miles, with 100 backcountry campsites. The firings at the park included about a half-dozen trail maintenance workers, said Bill Wade, 83, the executive director of the Association of National Park Rangers.
Joshua Tree
Joshua Tree National Park, in the Southern California desert, has no lodging or dining facilities, and 84 percent of it is managed as designated, potential or proposed wilderness. So even though nearly 3.3 million people visited in 2023, staffing shortages are less likely to affect the overall experience than at most other parks.
By most accounts, operations have been running smoothly this year during the typical peak period of March and April. But Kelly Herbinson, executive director of the Mojave Desert Land Trust, a local conservation group, worries that reduced staffing could “make it extremely difficult to mitigate visitor interaction with the fragile desert ecosystem and its most at-risk species.”
The city of Twentynine Palms owns the property just outside the park where the Joshua Tree National Park visitor center sits. Seeking to avoid its potential closure as the N.P.S. considers canceling some leases, elected officials there began working in March to transfer the building’s lease from the N.P.S. to the Joshua Tree National Park Association, the park’s nonprofit partner, Cindy Villescas, the city clerk, wrote in an email.
Olympic
Olympic National Park covers nearly one million acres of the Olympic Peninsula in Washington, featuring alpine highlands, beaches, hot springs and temperate rainforests, where you can find the world’s largest spruce tree, a Sitka roughly 1,000 years old. Easily accessible without a car via a two-hour ferry ride from Seattle, the park had 3.72 million visitors last year. Among other positions, the firings affected maintenance workers responsible for keeping the road open to Hurricane Ridge, one of the park’s most popular areas for hiking and stargazing.
When the parking lot fills up at the Hoh Rain Forest, a high-traffic area set to reopen in May, the fee station manages a “one car out, one car in” policy, often resulting in two-to-three-hour delays during peak season. Rangers play an important role in providing updates, via radio, about the number of available spots, and the cuts mean delays could be even longer.
Hoh is the park’s biggest attraction, with its 200-foot-tall Western red cedars, lush ancient groves, and resident herd of Roosevelt elk. Arrive very early during peak season to avoid long lines to get into the popular Hall of Mosses, or consider exploring the stunning yet overlooked South Fork Hoh Trail.
Rocky Mountain
A 90-minute drive northwest of Denver, Rocky Mountain National Park offers access to crystal-clear alpine lakes, wildflower meadows and some 60 peaks above 12,000 feet, like 14,259-foot Longs Peak. At the park, which drew 4.15 million visitors in 2024, the firings and buyouts are affecting entrance booth and visitor center workers and rangers, among others.
The park faces numerous problems, even in a “normal” peak season. Adam Auerbach, 32, a former ranger, cited the Bear Lake Road Corridor, one of the most popular hiking areas. It’s “a consistent management challenge” he said, because of full parking lots and overcrowding. At the Alpine Visitor Center, elevation 11,796 feet, Mr. Auerbach said treating cases of altitude sickness adds to rangers’ other duties, like keeping visitors from going off-trail and trampling the fragile alpine tundra.
Mayor Gary Hall of nearby Estes Park, Colo., encouraged travelers to make timed-entry reservations, which start on May 23. You can skip the timed-entry pass (and hassles of driving) by taking a 45-minute shuttle ride ($2 reservation fee for up to four tickets) from the Estes Park Visitor Center.
Yellowstone
In a busy July, up to one million visitors jockey for space at top Yellowstone National Park attractions like Old Faithful and the Grand Prismatic Spring. The park, in Wyoming, Montana and Idaho, is home to 290 waterfalls, more than 100 gray wolves, at least 4,000 bison and seven wastewater treatment plants — not to mention an active volcano.
Those numbers present some stressful management challenges, said Dan Wenk, who was Yellowstone’s superintendent from 2011 to 2018. Reduced staffing could mean trouble for everything from protecting park resources to providing interpretive services to managing long-term research projects, he said.
“I’m trying not to be an alarmist here, but the bottom line is: It’s not good,” Mr. Wenk said.
Todd Walton, a spokesman for the Xanterra Travel Collection, which runs sites like the Old Faithful Inn, the Mammoth Hot Springs Hotel and Cabins, and numerous campgrounds around the park, said the company’s lodging, dining and activities in Yellowstone and at other parks where the company operates “will all be operating normally, from mule rides to motor coaches.”
To beat the crowds, avoid visiting in July and August. And because Yellowstone’s West Entrance is by far the busiest, consider using the Northeast Entrance, near Cooke City, Mont., or the East Entrance, near Cody, Wyo.
Yosemite
Yosemite National Park, in Northern California, was hit hard by the staffing cuts. While some employees are returning, others have already moved out of state.
Yosemite has been understaffed for years, despite increasing demand, with 4.12 million visits in 2024. This has led to traffic and overcrowding, with drivers even parking in meadows.
In March, a news release prompted widely shared reports that the park was piloting a new timed-reservation system this summer, and Yosemite’s website says it “anticipates sharing details about this year’s reservation system in the near future,” but it remains uncertain whether one will be enacted. “If they don’t have the reservation system, it’s going to be impossible to still operate effectively,” said Don Neubacher, who served as the park’s superintendent from 2010 to 2016.
“Most of the problems are going to be in Yosemite Valley,” where there could be 20,000 people on a summer evening, said Ken Yager, the founder of the Yosemite Climbing Association. “You might just want to turn around and head toward Tuolumne Meadows for a day trip instead.”
One positive development: The Yosemite Search and Rescue team will be fully staffed for 2025.
Zion
One of the “Mighty Five” national parks in Utah, Zion draws 4.95 million annual visitors to its desert canyons, evergreen woodlands and sandstone cliffs.
“We have already seen the N.P.S. cuts impacting traffic at the tollbooths and into town,” said Barbara Bruno, the mayor of Springdale, a gateway community to the park. “The lines are longer than usual even on ‘normal’ days.” Ms. Bruno added that for years, Springdale residents have been helping direct traffic, pick up trash, cover the information desk and work in the greenhouse. “Ironically,” she said, “as the need for volunteers increases, the volunteer coordinator was one of the ‘probationary’ people who was fired.”
With the South Entrance expected to be a pinch point this season, travelers can avoid congestion by planning midweek trips or arriving before sunrise to get a parking spot in the visitor center lot, which often fills up by 7:30 a.m. on weekends. Visitors can also hop on the free Springdale Shuttle or the Zion Canyon Shuttle.
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