For decades, visitors to Yosemite National Park have been greeted by green- and khaki-clad rangers, who collect fees and guard the park’s entrance.
But on a chilly morning in December, there were no rangers at the park gates. Tourists descended into the majestic wilderness for free, confused by their apparent good fortune.
In fact, ranger sightings were too rare last year, according to park regulars and advocates. Visitors were far less supervised than they normally were, which had led to the wrong kind of wildness — littering, cliff jumping, drone-flying.
This is Yosemite under President Trump.
Over the past year, Mr. Trump has upended the agency that oversees Yosemite, the National Park Service.
He has presided over a 25 percent drop in permanent staff across the park service, through a combination of Department of Government Efficiency layoffs, as well as buyouts and retirements, according to the National Parks Conservation Association, a nonprofit.
The Trump administration has overhauled fee structures and reservation systems. It has ended free entry on Juneteenth and Martin Luther King’s Birthday, while granting free park admission on Mr. Trump’s birthday, which coincides with Flag Day. And this year, his face is on the annual park pass.
The U.S. Department of the Interior, which administers the National Park Service, declined to comment on staffing numbers or operations at Yosemite.
“Yosemite National Park continues to operate safely and serve millions of visitors each year,” the agency said in a statement, adding, “Interpretive offerings may vary throughout the year, but the park continues to provide a wide range of educational, recreational and stewardship opportunities for visitors.”
But according to interviews with park employees and environmentalists, the cuts at Yosemite, one of the country’s most visited national parks, have meant there aren’t always enough rangers to staff entrance booths or educate visitors on caring for the park. Amid the shortage, scientists working in the parks have cleaned the public toilets.
“It’s really disheartening to see the direction we’re going,” said Mark Ruggiero, a retired Yosemite ranger who still does part-time work in the park. “It’s trying times. Nobody is really sure what’s going to happen next.”
At the same time, tourists have been coming to Yosemite in droves, with 2025 becoming one of its busiest summers in recent years. October was unusually packed because the park was left open and free during the federal government shutdown.
Elisabeth Barton, a co-owner of a company that offers guided tours of Yosemite’s attractions, said her business had benefited from the crowds. But she has also noticed more visitors driving the wrong way down one-way roads, parking on sensitive meadows and BASE jumping off cliffs, which is not allowed.
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“We’re seeing the park really struggling to support the number of visitors that are coming in,” said Ms. Barton, 46. “I struggle to see the long game here.”
It was the vistas of Yosemite, with alpine lakes and meadows bathed in golden light, that helped inspire the creation of the entire national park system. President Abraham Lincoln in 1864 made the Yosemite Valley federally protected land designated for public use. That act paved the way for the eventual creation of the national park system, and Yosemite became the country’s third national park in 1890.
The park, the size of Rhode Island, is home to Half Dome and El Capitan, perhaps the most iconic rock faces in the country. It also has one of the tallest waterfalls in the United States, where, on that recent morning, a rainbow was visible at the base as it crashed into granite boulders.
During a walk around the park in December, Yosemite seemed the same as it had for decades. A father from Southern California was waiting at sunset for his son to propose to his girlfriend, so he could surprise them after. A tourist from the Czech Republic visiting several national parks marveled at how one country could contain so much beauty.
Grace Shiyatta said she was passing through a pine forest to meet her friends for a picnic to celebrate her 60th birthday. In their 20s, she and her friends had visited Yosemite every year, renting a big house to cross-country ski. It was a natural choice to return for her big birthday celebration, said Ms. Shiyatta, who lives in Sacramento.
“What would I rather do than hang out in Yosemite?” she said.
But she and other tourists also said they had been puzzled that the park hadn’t collected their entrance fees. And a climber said that he had just scaled Half Dome without the required permit, which is intended to prevent deaths and injuries on the exposed rock face.
Ms. Barton and her co-owner, Bryant Burnette, who have been giving private tours of the park for years, think visitors have become particularly unruly because there haven’t been enough staff members around to teach them the importance of caring for the landscape.
“No wonder people are throwing trash and flying drones,” said Mr. Burnette, 36, who, as he walked, picked up tissues and wrappers that had been discarded on the valley floor. “I can’t be mad at them.”
Last year, Yosemite was home to some of the most public displays of federal employee anger toward the Trump administration. In February, shortly after an abrupt firing of 1,000 park service employees, a group of frustrated staffers hung a distress flag off El Capitan, which still rises more than 3,000 feet above the base of Yosemite Valley.
Park supporters fear the long-term impact, especially with the loss of employees who plan for Yosemite’s preservation, including scientists who study endangered species or wildfire mitigation, and infrastructure experts who plan to move buildings out of flood plains.
Currently, employees are keeping the park running day to day, but that isn’t enough — and it can’t last forever, said Don Neubacher, who was superintendent of Yosemite from 2010 to 2016.
“It’s not like you’re talking about some city park,” he said. “You’re talking about nature’s greatest gifts — it’s a dire time.”
Soumya Karlamangla is a Times reporter who covers California. She is based in the Bay Area.
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