cuts gut – As summer travel ramps up, the National Park Service is operating with a dramatically smaller workforce, removed signage, and major budget cuts proposed for 2027—while reservation systems for some of the country’s biggest parks have been lifted. At the same ti
The first weekend of May at Yosemite National Park, visitors spent an hour and a half just getting to the entrance—and once they arrived, a new reality was waiting. Some iconic parks have lifted reservation systems that used to help manage demand, turning familiar routes into a freer-for-all.
This is playing out as Americans plan summer trips for the 250th birthday celebrations President Donald Trump is urging them to mark by visiting national parks. Trump has also stamped his face on the annual national parks pass. But the National Park Service is dealing with strains that visitors may feel immediately—even when the most serious impacts are happening behind the scenes.
Since Trump took office in 2025. the National Park Service has been gutted. with staff leaving or being laid off. historical signage removed. and funding for maintenance and operations slashed. The administration’s proposed 2027 budget would cut more than a fourth of the remaining annual budget for national parks.
Stephanie Pearson. a parks writer who has authored two books and written for Outside Magazine for decades. says the staff reductions are staggering: nearly a quarter of full-time National Park staff have lost their jobs. more than 4. 000 positions. She described what that kind of loss does on the ground—how people might still see public-facing staff. while the deeper capacity needed to protect the parks is diminished.
“You’re still going to be greeted at visitor kiosks,” Pearson said. “They’re still going to have information people.” But she said the cuts hit scientists. biologists. and infrastructure workers—the staff responsible for studying wildlife and balancing visitation with nature. and those maintaining the physical systems parks depend on.
When the workforce shrinks that sharply, she said remaining employees end up wearing many more hats. Pearson compared the visible staffing to something people can’t see: “Where they’re really diminishing is in scientists. biologists who are studying the flora and the fauna or the wildlife. ” she said. adding that infrastructure work is also being scaled back.
The parks are still open, Pearson emphasized. But the pressure shows up in access and management decisions. She said Yosemite. along with Glacier National Park and Acadia National Park. are among parks where reservations used to be required to drive on routes such as Going-to-the-Sun Road in Glacier National Park. Now, those reservation systems have been lifted.
Where the effects land can vary by park. Pearson said less-visited parks don’t face the same surge, but the iconic destinations that attract everyone tend to see the biggest blowback when access controls disappear.
Funding limits also shape how staffing looks in practice. Pearson said the Park Service is hiring seasonal employees. but is increasingly using the term “seasonal employee” to mean a nine-month position. She said seasonal workers may receive health insurance but not other benefits. and that some are shifted into different roles—leaving fewer full-time staff to handle ongoing work.
There is another layer to the changes now affecting what visitors see once they arrive: an effort to reshape historical and educational programming. In March 2025, President Trump issued an executive order titled Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History.
According to the executive order’s framing. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum described it as eliminating depictions at the Park Service that “inappropriately disparage Americans past or living. ” including in colonial times. Pearson said that has translated into specific removals inside parks. She cited Acadia National Park climate change signs taken down. and she said the Selma to Montgomery National Historic Trail underwent a major review.
Pearson said Park Service staff identified roughly 80 items that needed to be taken out, adding that the changes are happening in parks across the country.
In New York City, she pointed to Stonewall, where she said officials pulled down a pride flag—before New York City officials wanted it back up and it returned.
Pearson said the stakes feel urgent as summer travel coincides with the push for Americans to celebrate the country’s 250th birthday by visiting parks that, in her view, are being strained faster than they can recover.
She also argued there is still reason for people to take trips despite the practical frustrations. She said she has hope that Americans on both sides of the political aisle will recognize the value of national parks and return to them as places that teach history and showcase landscapes directly.
Her examples were personal and place-based: she described visiting Ancestral Puebloan land in New Mexico. and seeing the geology of Big Bend National Park. She also referenced what she said is happening there—people rallying on both sides of the aisle against efforts to build a border wall through Big Bend National Park.
“It almost breaks my heart to even think that,” Pearson said when asked whether summer visits are being driven by the fear that parks could be damaged further. She said she hopes people understand what they have to lose.
Asked about the larger idea of pushing people too far and expecting them not to respond. Pearson pointed to Teddy Roosevelt. calling him a “conservation president” whose views were changed by the Badlands landscape. Her hope. she said. is that visitors will come to these landscapes and leave “fundamentally changed. ” understanding what the country could lose if the parks keep shrinking.
National Park Service staffing cuts Yosemite Glacier Acadia reservation systems executive order Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History Doug Burgum Restoring Truth and Sanity seasonal employees Big Bend National Park Stonewall pride flag