By now you’ve probably heard about the staffing crisis gripping Yellowstone, Yosemite, and the nation’s other national parks.

On February 14, the National Park Service (NPS) , or about five percent of its total workforce. The move generated headlines in and , and over the weekend, dozens of recently fired NPS workers penned heartfelt essays on social media about losing the jobs they loved.

“I am the toilet scrubber and soap dispenser,” a fired NPS ranger named Brian Gibbs . “I am the open trail hiked by people from all walks of life. I am the highlight of your child’s school day.”

şÚÁĎłÔąĎÍř reached out to the NPS for comment, but did not hear back by the time this story published. The Ěý“The NPS is assessing our most critical staffing needs for park operations for the coming season and is working to hire key positions. The NPS is committed to protecting public lands, infrastructure, and communities while ensuring public access.”

The workforce upheaval stems from the Trump Administration’sĚý, which in 2024 employed approximately 3 million people (not including the military). In January, the administration announced a hiring freeze on all federal agencies, and offered buyouts to government workers willing to resign. Since then, almost every wing of the U.S. government has been impacted by the belt tightening.

But the Park Service cuts are the ones that will impact the summer vacation plans of millions of Americans. şÚÁĎłÔąĎÍř spoke to NPS experts and former employees about the staff changes to see how they will impact daily life at America’s favorite vacation destinations. We asked these experts whether park visitors will be able to see a difference when they hike on trails, arrive at visitor centers, or use the restroom.

The answer? You bet.

“Expect fewer services, less help, and fewer projects like trails or construction getting fixed,” says Kristen Brengel, the senior vice president of government affairs at the National Parks Conservation Association (NPCA),Ěýa non-profit advocacy group for the NPS. “You’ll need to lower your expectations.”

Which NPS Workers Were Cut?

Over the weekend, the NPCA tracked the layoffs and spoke to NPS staffers who lost their jobs. According to Brengel, the current cuts impacted all 63 U.S. national parks and all 433 areas managed by the Park Service. The cuts did not target specific jobs, she said, but were “indiscriminate.”

“We’ve heard from wildlife biologists, archaeologists, even wastewater treatment operators who were let go,” Brengel said. “We’re talking about people with incredible expertise losing jobs. It will throw some parks into a tailspin.”

Rather than target specific positions, the cuts impacted employees with “probationary” status, a designation given to federal employees for the first year of their employment in a position. the New York Times, the strategy was in-line with the Trump Administrations’ plan to dismiss the 200,000 or so federal workers with this designation.

The letter sent to laid-off employees read like a termination notice for low performance, according to the Times. “The department determined that you have failed to demonstrate fitness or qualifications for continued employment because your subject matter knowledge, skills, and abilities do not meet the department’s current needs,” read the letter distributed to some NPS staff.

Brengel points out that not every probationary worker is new or unqualified. Some veteran NPS workers were given the status after they were promoted to managerial positions; it was also given to seasonal NPS employees who had recently been hired to year-round positions.

“The ripple effect of these firings will be felt immediately,” she said. “It’s going to be a huge brain drain to lose a lot of these positions.”

Gibbs, 41, is one such employee. Prior to taking a full-time position at Iowa’s Effigy Mounds National Monument, which is managed by the NPS, he had spent four years working as a seasonal interpretive ranger at Glacier National Park. Interpretive rangers help visitors understand the cultural significance of an area.

Gibbs took that expertise to his job at Effigy Mounds, where he managed educational programs for kids, among other jobs. “At such a small monument I wore many hats,” he told şÚÁĎłÔąĎÍř. “On the day I got fired I was creating a program to take kids snowshoeing in the park.”

What Services Will Be Lost?

It may take several weeks to determine which services will be eliminated at each park. Brengel and others have told visitors to expect to encounter long lines, overflowing trash cans, unkempt bathrooms, and other drop-offs in service caused by a lack of manpower. One anonymous NPS employee told Politico to . Brengel said that major construction projects started in 2024, such as trail maintenance or road paving, are likely to be left unfinished.

In the days since the layoffs, fired NPS employees have shared their stories—and the jobs the NPS is losing—with local and national media.

A worker named Olek Chmura told that he’d no longer pick up trash and scoop up feces at Yosemite National Park.

The New York Times interviewed multiple NPS workers impacted by the cuts, among them Helen Dhue, a park guide at Palo Alto Battlefield National Historic Park in Brownsville, Texas, and Stacy Ramsey, a river ranger in Arkansas’ Buffalo National River. that she writes warnings for the general public when parts of the river are dangerous. “If no one is there to educate, it increases the risk of someone getting hurt on the river,” Ramsey told the Times.

an anonymous NPS ranger in California who wrote about his termination on Facebook. “I honestly can’t imagine how the parks will operate without my position,” he said. “I am the only EMT at my park and the first responder for any emergency.”

, 16 of the 17 supervisor positions at Wyoming’s Grand Teton National Park were axed. At Shenandoah National Park, trail maintenance workers and fee collectors lost their jobs.

Gibbs’s job at Effigy Mounds was focused on education. He developed classroom programs, took schools on tours of the area when they arrived on field trips, and also visited local schools to discuss the cultural significance of the park.

Effigy Mounds preserves 200 or so prehistoric earthworks that were built by pre-Columbian people. Some of the mounds are in the shapes of birds and bears.

Gibbs was one of two employees at Effigy Mounds to be let go. Just seven rangers remain, he said.

“Educating kids about the cultural resources at Effigy Mounds will come to a stop, and schools visiting will have to self-guide at the park,” Gibbs told °żłÜłŮ˛őľ±»ĺ±đ.Ěý“Kids and families are the ones who are going to lose out.”

What About the NPS Hiring Freeze?

Not all of the NPS news on Friday was bad. The Trump Administration published a memo from the federal hiring freeze to bring back some seasonal workers for the spring and summer.

The move allows the NPS to hire back 5,000 or so seasonal employees, whose jobs were rescinded in January when the freeze was announced across all federal agencies.ĚýMost parks rely heavily on seasonal workers, and each year the NPS hires between 7,000 and 8,000 of them to help during the busiest periods.

The reaction to the news was mixed.

“Exempting National Park Service seasonal staff from the federal hiring freeze means parks can fill some visitor services positions,” said Theresa Pierno, CEO of the NPCA, in a statement. “But with peak season just weeks away, the decision to slash 1,000 permanent, full-time jobs from national parks is reckless and could have serious public safety and health consequences.”

The timeline for hiring back seasonal workers has not been made public. According to Politico, had been granted exemptions as of February 18.

Brengal pointed out that seasonal workers might not be able to replace the full-time NPS employees who were lost in the layoffs. Some of the cut NPS workers who spoke to the NPCA were coordinators of seasonal labor, she said. For example, the 16 managers who lost their jobs at Grand Teton National Park help oversee seasonal workers.

“Seasonal workers can’t replace full-time positions,” she said.

Which Parks Have Been Hit the Hardest?

It may take until the busy summer months to assess the true impact of by Friday’s cuts on individual national parks and monuments. Brengel said that small parks with tiny staffs may suffer the worst, and that cuts there would force remaining employees to make tough choices.

“They may have to choose between keeping the visitor center open and the campground open,” she said. “These are the choices that smaller parks are going to have to make.”

But other parks are already feeling the pinch caused by the hiring freeze, layoffs, and other policy changes. , Yosemite National Park will abandon its reservation system, which was made permanent earlier this year.ĚýSources told the outlet that the park tabled the plan after the Trump Administration asked to review it.

What’s the Human Cost?

Like all mass-layoffs, the NPS cuts have upended lives and forced thousands to seek new livelihoods. Ramsey told theĚýTimes that she lost her job after spending three years working a contract position with the NPS just to get her foot in the door.

Gibbs echoed this sentiment when he spoke toĚý°żłÜłŮ˛őľ±»ĺ±đ.ĚýHe called his position at Effigy Mounds National Monument a “dream job,” and said that losing the position has forced his family into a dire financial situation. “We’re sad and frightened, and feel like we’ve had the rug pulled out from under us,” he said. Gibbs and his wife have a four-year-old son, and they are expecting a second child this year.ĚýGibbs said that his wife had to skip a monitoring appointment with her doctor after the family’s health insurance was terminated. “We feel frozen about what our next steps are,” he said.

The cuts have prompted action in some communities. Over the weekend, at Joshua Tree and Yosemite National Parks. On Tuesday, February 18, NPS workers and their friends and families just outside Rocky Mountain National Park, to protest.

Should You Visit a National Park this Summer?

The sources we spoke to still encouraged Americans toĚývisit National Parks this summer, despite the cuts. Yes, trails may be closed, parking lots may be messy, and lines may be longer than normal.

Instead, Gibbs said NPS visitors should do advanced homework before traveling to see which trails closed, and which services are limited. Reconsider trips deep into the backcountry, since manpower for lifesaving or rescues may be diminished. And stay on the trails.

“Know that there’s probably going to be a disruption in safety and resource protection,” Gibbs said.

Gibbs and Brengel urged visitors to have patience and understanding with the NPS employees who are manning the parks. Brengel said visitors should consider saying “thank you” to NPS rangers.

“Think about what a difficult time it must be for them, knowing that they may be next on the chopping block,” Brengel said. “They are going to be stretched thin, but they are the heroes for sticking it out.”

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The Eureka Valley Sand Dunes on first mentionĚýin Death Valley National Park are a photographer’s playground. The golden mounds that rise 600 feet from the valley floor are framed by the red-and-white stratified sandstone of the Last Chance Mountains. Green lumps of prickly shrubs, called Eureka dunegrass, sprout up from the sand.

“People are in we the first time they see them,” says , a guide who leads photography hikes within the park. “They are downright incredible to photograph. It’s not an experience that’s easily forgotten.”

But the remote dunes are currently crisscrossed by a series of scars, the unmistakable marks of automobile tires. On Monday, January 13, the National Park Service revealed that a motorist had illegally driven onto the dunes sometime in late December or early January. A photograph distributed by the NPS showed the tire marks starting near the parking lot before going through a patch of dunegrass and then higher onto the sand.

In the news release, Death Valley superintendent Mike Reynolds asked the public to help rangers identify the culprit.

“I urge the public to come forward with any information that could help identify those responsible for driving on Eureka Dunes,” said Superintendent Mike Reynolds. “I’m saddened that someone would disregard the survival of a rare species for a few minutes of joyriding.”

The park expressly forbids anyone from driving off marked roads. It also prevents visitors from sliding down the Eureka Sand Dunes on sandboards or sleds—popular activities at other dunes like White Sands and Great Sand Dunes national parks. That’s because the sand is the only known habitat of the Eureka dunegrass, which is listed as “threatened” under the Endangered Species Act. According to the NPS, the driver damaged or destroyedĚýeight different Eureka dunegrass plants.

Gordon, 56, was at his home in Long Beach, California, when he saw the news. “It’s frustrating, maddening, angering,” he said. “There’s no way to claim ignorance because there are signs everywhere.”

Like Yellowstone and the Grand Canyon, Death Valley National Park must occasionally grapple with vandals and visitors who break the rules. On May 13, an irresponsible driver destroyed a 113-year old salt tram tower in Saline Valley while attempting to free his vehicle from mud.

In 2016, two and fences guarding Devils Hole, a water-filled cavern that is off-limits to visitors. One man proceeded to swim in the water.

Gordon first visited the Eureka Dunes in the late eighties, and he began leading guided photography tours inside the park two decades ago. These days, he takes small groups to snap shots of the park’s iconic salt flats and red rocks from mid-October until the temperatures begin soaring in April.

Many visitors stop and see the popular sand dunes at Mesquite Flat, which is located right off of HighwayĚý190, the main road inside the park. But few ever venture to the park’s northwestern corner to see the Eureka dunes.

“I used to be able to show up and not even see another person,” Gordon says. “Still, just a fraction of visitors ever go to Eureka Dunes because the dirt road keeps them away.”

But Gordon has seen more signs of bad behavior at Eureka in recent years: people playing in the dunes with plastic toys, and the occasional tire marks in the sane. “I’ve chastised people and tried to educate them about the rules,” he says. “There’s a clear sign next to the bathroom explaining what they can and can’t do.”

Even more maddening, Gordon says, is the relatively close proximity of sand dunes that do allow off-road access. Nevada’s Big Dune Recreation Area, which does allow vehicles to drive on sand dunes, is located just 62 miles from Death Valley’s Furnace Creek Visitor Center.

The tire tracks in the Eureka Dunes will quickly disappear amid the shifting sands, and within a few weeks the golden mounts are likely to appear as they did before. But Gordon says he will continue to call out bad behavior when he sees it in the sand.

“Those of us who spend a lot of time in the park take it personally. It’s like you’re damaging my park,”Ěýhe says.

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On May 13, the National Park Service issued disclosing that a historic 113-year-old salt tram tower in Death Valley National Park had been pulled down by an irresponsible driver. Now, there’s video that may show the incident’s aftermath.

“The National Park Service (NPS) seeks information about recent damage to a historic salt tram tower in Saline Valley,” reads the release. “It appears the 113-year-old tower was pulled over while a person used a winch to extract their vehicle out of deep mud. The damage happened sometime between April 1 and April 24, 2024.”

A video uploaded to YouTube on April 27—shortly after the incident took place—appears to show the immediate aftermath of the event, and may identify the alleged perpetrators.ĚýThat video was taken down on May 15, but °żłÜłŮ˛őľ±»ĺ±đĚýreviewed it in the days prior.

The National Park Service confirmed that they have seen and downloaded the video.

“While we don’t comment on ongoing investigations, the response to this incident from the off-road community has been humbling,” an NPS spokesperson told şÚÁĎłÔąĎÍř. “We’ve received an overwhelming amount of information attempting to help identify the individuals responsible and help repair the damage. We will notify people of potential volunteer opportunities at the appropriate time.”

The video appears to have been recorded on a dash cam. At the two-and-a-half minute mark of the original 11-minute video, the the driver is narrating his encounter with a person wearing “daisy dukes and a halter top.”

The location of the tram tower is about 40 miles into Saline Valley Road—a rough 4×4 route—farĚýfrom the nearest pavement at Highway 190. It’s an area I’ve traveled through many times, and am very familiar with.

The historic tram towers were constructed in 1911 to ferry salt from the remote Saline Valley, over the rugged Inyo Mountains, and into Owens Valley, 13 miles away, in a straight line.

“The tramway climbed over 7,000 vertical feet at steep grades up to 40 degrees,” stated an NPS official in a release. “Saline Valley Salt Tram is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. It is considered nationally significant because of its age, length, steepness, preservation, and scenic setting.”

“Tram tower #1 is the tower closest to Saline Valley lakebed,” the release continued. “Nearby tracks show that a vehicle drove a short distance off the legal roadway and got stuck in mud. Park rangers believe that someone used the nearby tower as an anchor to pull their vehicle out of the mud. The tower toppled over, pulling its concrete footings out of the ground.”

“We need a winch,” the woman tells the filming driver at the original 2:35 time stamp. “We went a little too far into the mud, and there’s nothing to press the winch onto. See that last tower? Honestly, you guys can get into maybe like 20 feet easily, we just need something to latch onto, we’ve got nothing.”

The driver then pulls down the access road that runs along the old tram line, and pulls into the turn around at the end of the road. The delineation between terrain that can safely be driven and impossibly deep mud is, in my experience, very clear at that point. But visible is a truck stuck up to its axles, about 20 feet beyond that point.

At this point in the video, the tram tower is already toppled. We have no way of knowing if this is the vehicle or the drivers who pulled it down. But, at 3:45 in the original video, we can see someone disconnect the truck’s winch cable from the damaged tower, and drag it back to the truck.

A close up shortly after shows the vehicle in detail. It’s a white Toyota Tundra, of the generation made between 2006 and 2021. It appears to be extensively modified with a Topo Toppers Mesa camper,Ěýa roof rack, a high clearance front bumper, and a winch.

The driver of the dash cam-equipped vehicle then goes onto attempt a straight winch pull. Vehicles stuck in deep mud can create resistance equivalent to two to three-times the weight of the vehicle itself, and that Tundra’s gross vehicle weight rating is 7,200 pounds. So it’s no surprise that attempt fails. Most winches on mid-size 4x4s are rated for a capacity of 12,000 pounds, or less.

At 5:30 in the original video, we can see the drivers attempt to attach a second winch line from another vehicle. The drivers then reposition the winch lines to separate recovery points, and attach a third line, which eventually frees the stuck Tundra. At no point are pulleys or dampers involved, which could have respectively reduced forces, and reduced the risk created by a broken line, shackle, or attachment point. The forces here must have been huge—at least 20,000 pounds—so any equipment failure would have resulted in potentially deadly consequences.

At 10:10 in the source video, the truck is eventually pulled to dry ground. Judging by the amount of phones seen in the video, this is likely not the only video or photos of the incident.

“The NPS already had a salt tram stabilization project planned before this damage happened, funded by the Inflation Reduction Act,” concluded the NPS. “The project manager has not determined if that funding can be used to re-anchor tower #1.”

“Park rangers ask that anyone with information on this incident contact the NPS-wide tip line at 888-653-0009 orĚý.”

“I hope the person responsible for this damage will contact us so we can discuss restitution,” says Death Valley National Park Superintendent Mike Reynolds.

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Climate change, overcrowding, Pierce Brosnan—the list of existential crises facing our beloved national parks seems to expand every day.

Alas, the threat generating headlines this week is not new but is equally vexing. The menace? Dudes seemingly just for the heck of it.

This situation played out at Nevada’s Lake Mead National Recreation Area on Sunday, April 7, and video of the incident made the rounds on social media a few days later. A park visitor shot video of two men destroying sandstone outcrops along the popular Redstone Dune Trail, a short hiking loop on the western edge of the lake. The clip shows the two guys using their legs and arms to push sizable red boulders off of a cliff—a practice known as trundling. Each boulder slams into the rocks and explodes into 200-million-year-old dust particles. A young girl standing behind the men can be heard screamingĚý“Daddy don’t fall!” in the video.

You can watch the whole thing below:

Federal authorities are looking for two men who were caught on video damaging protected rock formations at Lake Mead National Recreation Area last weekend.

Who knows these asshats?

— Las Vegas Locally (@LasVegasLocally)

The clip caused buzz online, and on Saturday, April 13, the Park Service asking the general public to help identify the men in the video. Nobody knows yet who the men are, or what type of punishment they face if they are caught.ĚýJohn Haynes, a spokesman for Lake Mead, told local media that the men’sĚýaction “almost feels like a personal attack.”

“Why on earth would you do this to this area that’s so beautiful? It’s one of my favorite places in the park and they’re up there just destroying it. I don’t understand that,” Haynes .

“It’s pretty appalling, it is kind of disgusting,” he added.

NPS officials across the country regularlyĚýdeal with vandalism, and in recent years areas of Yosemite, the Grand Canyon, and even Acadia National Park have been tagged by graffiti. In January 2022, someone over ancient petroglyphs at Big Bend National Park.

But the intentional destruction of geologic formations—done in broad daylight, nonetheless—spurs a different type of anger, especially when you see it with your very eyes. You can paint over graffiti or sandblast it from a wall; you cannot glue a sandstone boulder back together. And I think everyone watching the video clip can relate to the operator of the camera, who at one point utters “But why?” After all, the whole point of encircling these cliffs in the protective barrier of public land is to prevent their destruction.

Alas, I have no answer to why these guys were smashing rocks, and it’s tough to assume a motive since the men in question are staying quiet. To me, this does not look like preventative trundling, which is the act of knocking down choss from a precipitous perch in order to prevent deadly rockfall. Plus, I’d rather have a Park Service employee go on rock patrol, and not two dudes in jeans.

No, this trundling looks purely recreational—casual rock throwing done for the oooh, ahhh, SMASH! of it all. I will absolutely cop to having done this in my past. When I was 13 I once spent an afternoon rolling boulders down the butte near my childhood home with two buddies. Our fun was interrupted by a passing hiker who recognized the danger and destruction of our actions and sternly threatened to phone our parents. Yeah, it was a total buzzkill, but the guy’s anger did cause me to stop and ponder my actions, and I never did that again. Like most kids, I eventually grew out of that life phase in which setting fires and smashing stuff tickled every neuron in my brain.

I also read about the deadly outcomes of recreational rock tossing.ĚýIn 2007 şÚÁĎłÔąĎÍř published a feature on the death of legendary climber Pete Absolon, who was struck in the head by a boulder while climbing in the Wind River range. The rock thrower, a man named Luke Rodolph, had been tossing boulders off of the cliff and gleefully watching them descend. I think the final nail in the coffin for my own trundling desire occurred a decade ago when video circulated of two Boy Scout leaders hootin’ and hollerin’ as they in Utah’s Goblin State Park. After the video sparked national outrage, the men claimed they were toppling the rocks to prevent someone from being hurt, presumably by accidentally toppling over a rock. It was a curious explanation, since most visitors at Goblin State Park are there to specifically witness the majesty of these precariously perched rocks. Those two eventually served a year of probation and paid a hefty fine.

Hiking next to cool red sandstone is why tourists flock to the trails on the banks of Lake Mead. And I’m prepared to arch my eyebrow at whatever explanation these guys provide—should park rangers ever track them down.

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Across the 429 parks, monuments and historic sites managed by the National Park Service, , or otherwise center women’s history. This is a problem, because women have—and this should be obvious—played vital roles not only in the preservation and study of nature, and our nation’s history, but also because women are essential to the operationĚýof the parks themselves. Last week, President Biden signed an executive order that will again to address that disparity.

will increase representation at sites managed by the National Park Service, and honor the history of women in America.

“By highlighting the role that women and girls have played in shaping the American story, we will tell a more complete account of American history and help create a more equal future,” states the White House.

The executive order directs the Department of the Interior (of which NPS is a bureau) to begin by conducting a study aimed at assessing which existing sites are significant to women’s history, identifying new sites, and developing recommendations about how women’s history could better be included across the park system.

An additional study will be the first ever comprehensive review of women’s history ever conducted by NPS. Its aim will be to identify women who have played significant roles in American history, especially during the American revolution, abolition and suffrage movements, the world wars, and civil rights and women’s rights movements. The study will seek to include women from diverse backgrounds, reflecting the full breadth of, “race, ethnicity, religion, age, geography, income, socioeconomic status, and other factors” in the American experience. Those results will then be used to determine which women may be recognized in new or existing historic sites.

The Executive Order also directs DOI to ask the NPS advisory board to develop recommendations from historians and other experts on opportunities to improve representation of women across NPS sites, materials and programs.

The action adds to the administration’s ongoing efforts to advance equality and representation across the country. Those efforts include the designation last year of both the Emmett Till and Mamie Till-Mobley National Monument in Mississippi and Illinois, and the Baaj Nwaavjo I’Tah Kukveni National Monument near the Grand Canyon, as well as naming Camp Amache—a site where Japanese Americans were incarcerated during World War II—a National Historic Site. The administration has, to-date, invested $19 million in parks commemorating women.

“President Biden’s Executive Order directs our team to think beyond the stories we currently tell to seek out the new and often untold stories of the women who have blazed a path for all of us,” said Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland. “Doing this work means telling our country’s full and honest story, learning about the women across generations who have strengthened our nation and building a future where everyone can thrive.”

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The celebrity trial of the century, this was not.

On Thursday March 14, a district judge in Wyoming named Stephanie A. Hambrick of Irish movie star Pierce Brosnan—yes, he of James Bond fame. Brosnan, 70, was accused of breaking sacrosanct rules of decorum inĚýYellowstone National Park during his visit there on November 1. The Park Service said that Brosnan while visiting the Mammoth Terraces hot springs and then snapped a selfie in front of the natural wonder—despite the presence of signs saying to stay on the trail. The authorities found out about the offense because, of course,ĚýBrosnan uploaded a cool mid-crime photo to Instagram. Yes, according to the National Park Service, 007 himself acted like a bonafide .

The trial was short and sweet. Brosnan called in to the procedures by phone. After initially challenging the accusation, he pled guilty to one charge: walking in a restricted thermal area. The court dismissed the second charge: violating closures and use limits. Judge Hambrick ordered Brosnan to pay a $500 fine and make a $1,000 donation to Yellowstone Forever, a nonprofit group that works with the park. Case closed.

Brosnan apologized, releasing the following statement on social media: “As an environmentalist, I have the utmost respect for and love of our natural world. I deeply regret my transgression and offer my heartfelt apologies to all for trespassing in this sensitive area.”

The hammer of justice was swift. But was it just?

I pondered the question all weekend, and I still cannot decide. As you may know, acting like a dimwit seems to be the God-given right of every visitor to America’s oldest national park these days. Every week, another video surfaces of a tourist attempting to or or . By my estimation, Yellowstone idiocy represents one of the biggest threats to our country’s national security.Ěý . Even the .

Brosnan’s offense is minor when compared to what goes on at Yellowstone on a typical Wednesday in July. I scanned his Instagram page and saw zero images of him attempting to ride the megafauna. So, perhaps $1,500 and some humiliation in the press is punishment enough.

But Brosnan is a wealthy celeb, of course. Some members of society (hand raised) may feel the desire to make a public example out of him, to dissuade the throngs of would-be rule breakers from skipping off Yellowstone’s designated pathways to trample sensitive habitats. By our logic, a $1500 fine is a pretty meager punishment. Heck, that’s probably the value of the pink wingtips that match the suit he’s wearing in the above photo.

So, what is an appropriate sanction for the crime of walking off-trail at Yellowstone to check out Mammoth Terraces? If you’re Pierce Brosnan, then perhaps the following punishments are appropriate:

Penalty by Singing

Pierce Brosnan is no Marvin Gaye—. Fans of the 2008 film adaptation of Mamma Mia may remember the auditory nightmare of him belting out a tunes. For anyone who requires proof, I have included the link below. Be forewarned: you may want to move Fido to an adjacent room, because Pierce can’t hit the high, low, or medium notes.

As punishment, the court asks Mr. Brosnan to belt out the musical’s hit song into the phone. A team of songwriters will analyze his performance, and asses $1,000 in damages for every blown note, forgotten lyric, or voice crackle.

GoldenEye Slap Fight

The court requires Mr. Brosnan to beat the Nintendo 64 game GoldenEye while . This ordeal may take weeks or months for Mr. Brosnan to complete.

Forced Ice Removal

Plowing the every spring is a major undertaking that requires dozens of staffers, heavy equipment, and long hours. Brosnan knows a thing or two about breaking ice, and in the curiously goofy 2002 James Bond chapter Die Another Day he fights a whole cadre of bad guys in silly frozen palace, and manages to completely destroy the whole thing. As punishment, the court requires Mr. Brosnan to report to Mammoth Hot Springs on April 1 with a shovel and an ice scraper and to start chipping away at the Grand Loop Road.

A Run-by Fruiting

This one is pretty self explanatory.

Late Addition: The Reverse-Selfie Heist

Hooboy do I love the finale of The Thomas Crown Affair, and I will argue its perfection with any cinephile. For those unfortunate readers who are unfamiliar: wealthy playboy and art thief Thomas Crown must sneak into the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art and replace a priceless Monet that he had previously stolen. There are twists, turns, double-fake-outs, and lots of Pierce Brosnan.

The court demands that Mr. Brosnan somehow sneak past Yellowstone security into the Mammoth Terraces WITHOUT GOING OFF TRAIL and then un-take his illegal selfie.

The Punishment Is Not Enough

Rotten Tomatoes maintains an updated ranking of all 27 films in the James Bond oeuvre, and it lists the godawful 2002 chapter The World Is Not Enough as No. 24. In my opinion, this is way too high for a nonsensical movie with with massive plot holes, abysmal dialogue, and bad acting. Sorry, Pierce, not your best work. But perhaps it’s the focal point of a truly appropriate punishment for violating rules at Yellowstone.

The court demands that Mr. Brosnan watch all 128 minutes ofĚýThe World Is Not Enough.ĚýThe court recognizes that this punishment may be deemed to be cruel and unusual.

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At midnight Mountain Time on January 30, the public comment period closed for two proposals from the National Park Service (NPS) and U.S. Forest Service (USFS) that would ban fixed anchors (bolts, pitons, snow pickets, slings) in America’s Designated Wilderness areas.

I’ve written a lot about and around this subject; so if you want a full treatment, read But here are the three essential facts you need to know about the proposals and their implications:

1. Fixed anchors would be banned unless individually proven otherwise.Ěý

By leaning into a clever bit of legalese, the NPS and USFS are trying to re-classify all “fixed anchors” as “installations.” Since “installations” are explicitly banned from wilderness areas unless deemed otherwise on a case-by-case basis, all fixed anchors would be banned too. This essentially inverts the formula that the NPS and USFS had previously used to manage fixed climbing hardware: Previously, climbing anchors were considered legal unless there was some reason (generally archeological or environmental) to disallow them; now climbing is illegal unless the park goes out of its way to decide otherwise.

As Erik Murdock, Interim Executive Director of Access Fund, told me several months ago: “If this proposal passes, all fixed anchors will be considered illegal until they are provided an exception. The wilderness administrator can provide that exception. But they may not if they don’t want to.”

2. This is not simply a problem for sport climbers.

The term “fixed anchors,” as defined by the Forest and Park Services, does not just apply to bolts. Instead, it includes all forms of permanent or left-behind protection. In addition to bolts and rap rings, it includes slung trees, stuck nuts, snow pickets, pitons, and any safety gear a climber happens to leave behind—even in retreat. A ban on permanent gear would effectively ban getting down off of thousands of cliffs and mountains around the United States.

To look at the potential implications of this, just look at North Cascades National Park, where anchors are banned in order () to “preserve a wilderness experience that reflects a raw style of mountaineering in a range that has changed little since Fred Beckey made first ascents of now-popular peaks.” What that means, however, is that descending climbers are generally forced to avoid rappelling clean rock faces and instead descend via steep, avalanche-prone couloirs—and without the legal right to leave behind snow pickets as protection even if they deem it necessary.

3. Opposing the proposed ban does not mean supporting grid-bolting.Ěý

The vast majority of climbers have historically been great advocates for wilderness spaces; indeed, climbers and climbing organizations almost uniformly agree that the placement of anchors—especially bolts—in wilderness ought to be overseen by land managers. But climbers think that anchors are compatible with the wilderness areas we have helped to create.

Lifelong rock climber and former Colorado Senator Mark Udall, for instance, helped bring federal wilderness protections to huge swaths of Colorado, including parts of Rocky Mountain National Park, and when he did so he considered climbing a legitimate use of that wilderness. For that reason, he has outspokenly opposed the NPS and USFS’s attempt to twist the language of the Wilderness Act to ban climbing.

In an article published by this past November, Udall wrote: “As the primary sponsor of the Rocky Mountain National Park Wilderness and Indian Peaks Wilderness Expansion Act, I want to be absolutely clear: Nothing in those bills was intended to restrict sustainable and appropriate Wilderness climbing practices or prohibit the judicious and conditional placement of fixed anchors—many of which existed before the bills’ passage. I used fixed anchors to climb in these areas, and I want future climbers to safely experience profound adventures and thereby become Wilderness advocates themselves.”

And there you have it: even the people who created these wilderness areas are opposed to the USFS and NPS’s attempt to manage them.

You can read Access Fund’s guidance on these issues .

Learn more about how you can support the Protecting America’s Rock Climbing (PARC) Act

NOTE: The deadline for public comment period has now passed. But you can still support wilderness climbing by supporting the Expanding Public Lands Outdoor Recreation Experiences (EXPLORE) Act, which is currently in congress and includes language overtly protecting wilderness climbing and fixed anchor use.

—Steven Potter

The post The Park Service Wants to Ban All Rock Climbing in Designated Wilderness appeared first on şÚÁĎłÔąĎÍř Online.

Climbers are taking aim at a controversial policy that would impact the permanent bolts, slings, and other safety anchors that are located on climbing routes inside designated wilderness.

Earlier in November, the National Park Service and National Forest Service released draft directives for approving and managing these fixed anchors—but the plan calls for the climbing infrastructure to be reclassified as “installations.” This wording technically makes them illegal under the 1964 Wilderness Act, which protects huge swaths of backcountry. Under the proposed rules, local forest supervisors and park superintendents could then review and approve or deny each bolt after following a requirement analysis.Ěý

The public has 60 days (from November 17) to comment on the proposals and .

Opponents of the rule argue that these land managers are already under-resourced and short staffed, and the process for reviewing and then approving climbing anchors—many of which have been fixed to routes for decades—could take years. Below is an explainer for why some in the climbing community feel the proposed policy misses the mark.

How it Works

Both the NPS and NFS directives explicitly acknowledge that climbing is a legitimate use of wilderness. But both of them go on to propose that “fixed anchors”—a term which encompasses all forms of permanent or left-behind protection, including everything from bolts and rap rings to slung trees, stuck nuts, and snow pickets—should be categorized as “installations,” a term historically used to describe objects like paved roads, fire towers, buildings, bridges, and landfills. According to the 1964 Wilderness Act, installations are ipso facto prohibited in wilderness, but they can be permitted on a case-by-case basis through a process called a minimum requirement analysis (MRA).

Controversial Wording

With the use of “installations” to define anchors, the NPS and NFS essentially propose a guilty until proven innocent structure for them. Instead of assuming that anchors are permitted but subject to approval, the directives assume that every fixed safety anchor in wilderness—even those that pre-date the Wilderness Act—is illegal, and therefore subject to either removal or non-replacement, until the local land manager finds the time and budget to conduct an MRA and decide their final fate.Ěý

While climbing organizations like Access Fund agree that the placement of anchors (particularly bolts) in wilderness should be overseen by land managers, they oppose the idea that anchors ought to be considered illegal unless proven otherwise. “In the past, the way climbers have used anchors in wilderness has been allowable unless they’re causing [negative] impacts,” says Erik Murdock, Interim Executive Director of Access Fund. “But this is flipped on its head. If this proposal passes, all fixed anchors will be considered illegal until they are provided an exception. The wilderness administrator can provide that exception. But they may not if they don’t want to.”

Who Will Decide?

Both proposals note that climbing is a legitimate activity in wilderness, and that administrators ought to take this legitimacy into account when conducting their MRAs. This essentially means that officials would weigh climbing’s public value and historical relevance at any given crag against its perceived impacts on a climbing area’s “wilderness character.” This subjective process could lead to significant inconsistency from year to year and wilderness area to wilderness area. The : yes. : no. Or vice versa.Ěý

Will El Capitan Close in Two Months?

No. The directive explicitly states that climbing will continue to be allowed on existing anchors until those anchors can be subjected to an MRA.Ěý

Clarity Still Needed

Given the fact that land managers are woefully understaffed and under-resourced, and given the fact that the process of proving a given anchor’s compatibility with wilderness will require significant time and resources from those land managers, it’s unclear how the NPS and NFS realistically expect to weigh in on the tens of thousands of routes that currently sit within the wilderness areas they administer. Will they wait until a climber or local climbing organization identifies an anchor that needs replacing, then conduct an MRA about the replacement and go from there? Or will they take a more active approach—as recommended by the NPS managers in Joshua Tree last year—and actively search out routes and anchors they randomly deem non-compliant and chop them?Ěý

Potential Lawsuits

Another implication is legal. Things defined as “installations” in a wilderness context are subject to lawsuits. Any user—or any anti-climbing wilderness organization—can point at an installation that has not undergone an MRA and sue for its removal. This same legal mechanism was used by Wilderness Watch in 2010 to condemn an 80-year-old fire tower in the Glacier Peak Wilderness in Washington. Despite the fact that the tower both pre-dated the Wilderness Act and had been on the National Register of Historic Places since 1988, the tower was ultimately condemned by a federal judge and slated for removal—only to be saved by an act of federal legislation (introduced by one of Washington’s senators and signed into law by President Obama) that superseded the judge’s ruling. If the installation definition were to be applied to bolts, slings, pitons, rap anchors, and so on, groups like Wilderness Watch could use the same mechanism to gradually strip necessary anchors from Yosemite, the Black Canyon, the Tetons, Acadia, and thousands of other federally administered wilderness crags around the country.Ěý

Which brings us to another topic:Ěý

A Better Solution

The Protecting America’s Rock Climb Act (PARC), which is explicitly designed to ensure sustainable climbing access in designated wilderness, enjoys significant bipartisan support. If passed, it would force both the NFS and NPS to explicitly allow the regulated use, placement, and maintenance of fixed anchors in wilderness areas, and would prohibit all federal land management agencies from fundamentally disallowing standard climbing practices and protection in wilderness. Want to support wilderness climbing? Write to your congressional representatives .

Who Wrote This?

The NFS’s , which is admittedly less fluent than the produced by the NPS, at one point notes that a “Forest Supervisor may authorize the placement or replacement of fixed anchors and fixed equipment in wilderness… in areas where impacts on the rock face are occurring due to the use of rock hammers to chip hand holds or foot holds into the rock.”Ěý

Italics mine because what in the nine circles of hell do they even mean?

Is the forest service really suggesting that the climbers—a largely self-policing and conservation-minded community whose constituents unanimously agree that chipping handholds and footholds is the opposite of what we want to see happening on our rock—just need to start chipping in order to justify our rappel anchors? Or was this document written and edited by someone whose knowledge of climbing history and climbing ethics is so mediocre that they conflated the chipping controversies of the late 1980s with the clean climbing revolution that began with Yvon Chouinard, Tom Frost, and Doug Robinson in the early 1970s and has largely guided our wider community’s relationship to rock ever since? Either way, it’s pretty shoddy work on the part of the Forest Service. And it’s pretty frightening to think that these people are in charge of climbing’s past and its future.Ěý

Steven Potter is the digital editor at Climbing.Ěý

The post Rock Climbers Are Fighting a Proposed Wilderness Policy. Here’s Why. appeared first on şÚÁĎłÔąĎÍř Online.

President Joe Biden designated two new national monuments on Tuesday, March 21: Avi Kwa Ame in southern Nevada, and Castner Range in west Texas. The decision shields more than half a million acres of land from development.

The president will also direct the Secretary of Commerce, Gina M. Raimondo, to consider making 777,000 square miles around the Pacific Remote Islands, which are located southwest of Hawaii, a National Marine Sanctuary.Ěý

“Our country’s natural treasures define our identity as a nation. They’re a birthright we have to pass down to generation after generation,” Biden said on Tuesday.

Located 80 miles south of Las Vegas, Avi Kwa Ame National Monument encompasses 506,814 acres, and includes the 5,963-foot Ava Kwa Ame (Spirit Mountain). Home to one of the world’s largest Joshua tree forests, the national monument links the Mojave Desert, in California, with the Lake Mead National Recreation Area, as well as other protected areas to the east near the Colorado River.Ěý

Avi Kwa Ame is sacred ground for the Mojave, Chemehuevi, and some Southern Paiute people, and holds cultural significance for nearly a dozen other tribal nations. The Fort Mojave Indian Tribe has been petitioning the U.S. government to protect the area for more than two decades.

“It’s always been a priority of the tribe for as long as I can remember because it’s so important to our creation story,” said Shan Lewis, vice chairman of the Fort Mojave Indian Tribe, . “I’ve heard stories from my elders about fighting for the protection of the area for many, many years before me. It’s been a lot longer than people realize.”

Castner Range, located just outside El Paso, Texas, covers 6,672 acres of high-desert mountains and makes up the southern component of the Franklin Mountain range. It was a training and testing site for the U.S. Army during World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War, before closing in 1966.

“The local El Paso community cherishes the Franklin Mountains for their natural and ecological features. Castner Range remains an area of high biodiversity for desert species in America, including spring blooms of the Mexican Poppy,” the White House . “Along with creosote brush vegetation, it provides important habitat to wildlife that call Castner Range home, including the American peregrine falcon, Golden eagle, mountain plover, Texas horned lizard, Black-tailed prairie dog, Baird’s swallow, and the Western burrowing owl.”

President Biden’s latest conservation efforts come as his administration faces criticism for approving a 30-year ConocoPhillips Willow oil drilling project in Alaska. The massive $8 billion extraction will be one of the largest of its kind on U.S. soil, and is sharply opposed by environmentalists and some Alaska Native communities, .

, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre was asked whether the administration was sending mixed signals on environmental issues.

Jean-Pierre said the Willow decision was made due to legal constraints, as ConocoPhillips has the right to drill in that area.

The conservation summit is “about building on the president’s historic climate and conservation record,” Jean-Pierre said.

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While visiting a national park, I’m hoping to get away from the sounds of traffic and text dings and modern-day noise. I want to see peaks and valleys and bears and elk. I want to see a lot—but hear nothing man-made. According to the National Park Service’s Natural Sounds and Night Skies Division, roughly 72 percent of all national-park visitors say one of the most important reasons for preserving our parks is to experience the sounds of nature.

A helicopter on a scenic flight overhead as you’re looking out over Bryce Canyon is not a natural sound. Some two dozen national parks are wrestling with how to preserve the natural soundscape for visitors and local wildlife, while trying to sustain an air-tourism economy (which the parks don’t profit from).

Collectively, there are 45,000 commercial scenic air tours over our national parks, and the vast majority haven’t been regulated by the parks. In the last year, however, management for 10 parks have released air-tour management programs that dictate how many sightseeing fixed-wing and helicopter tours can take place above their land. One of those, Everglades National Park, eliminated sightseeing flights altogether in 2022. Another 14 parks, including Utah’s Arches National Park and Nevada’s Lake Mead National Recreation Area, are in the process of developing plans.

The parks were spurred into decision-making by a 2019 lawsuit filed by the non-profit Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility which resulted in a court order demanding that any park hosting more than 50 sightseeing air tours a year develop a management plan by August 22, 2022. Twenty-four parks, including top-bill destinations like Glacier, in Montana, and Great Smoky Mountains, in Tennessee and North Carolina, were named in the resulting court order.

More than half of those parks are still working through the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) review process, which will include environmental studies and public comments on the specifics of each plan. But 10 parks, including Glacier, Arches, Great Smokies, and Canyonlands and Bryce in Utah, have released plans in the last six months that grandfather in a certain amount of air traffic based on the number of flights in each between 2017 and 2019.

The review process originally arose in 1986 after two tour aircraft collided over Grand Canyon National Park, killing 25 people. At the time, the Grand Canyon was seeing 100,000 sightseeing flights a year. In , Congress created the National Parks Overflights Act, asking the National Park Service (NPS) to identify the overflight problems in its system. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and NPS were able to create a flight-management plan for Grand Canyon by that December, establishing designated routes and minimum altitude for flights.

But the park service didn’t deliver a report to Congress addressing the issue at a national level until 1994, stating that the FAA and NPS should work together to develop rules that would aid in the preservation of natural quiet in parks, but be park specific.

The current plans are the first attempt by the NPS to regulate commercial air tours on a large scale, mandating routes and heights of the aircraft as well as flight volume.

Glacier has been working on the issue of air tourism for 20 years. The park protects more than 1,500 square miles of largely roadless wilderness. Sightseeing tours have occurred over it for decades without much regulation in regards to their impact on wildlife and the visitor experience. But Glacier’s new aims to cap flights at 144 per year and phase out all commercial flights by December 31, 2029.

“Our body of work has elevated natural sounds in the park as a primary resource we want to maintain,” says Peter Webster, deputy superintendent of Glacier National Park. “The park wants to protect its soundscapes and its wilderness value.”

Glacier park officials have been trying to preserve the park’s soundscape since 1999, when they developed its current General Management Plan, which called for a ban of commercial air tours over its boundaries. According to the Natural Sounds and Night Skies Division of the NPS, sound levels in high air-traffic corridors in a park’s backcountry can be elevated by , drastically reducing the area in which predators can hear their prey, aside from the impact that helicopters or low-flying flights can have on visitors looking for peace and quiet.

“I was a backcountry ranger in Glacier in the early ’90s, and sightseeing flights were a concern for me on the ground back then,” Webster says. “It was bad. Public feedback was adamant about dealing with the noise, which led to the decision to cease flights in the General Management Plan.”

The park, however, lacked the ability to proceed. Jeff Ruch, Pacific Director for PEER, explains that: “The FAA told Glacier that their jurisdiction stopped at the treetops.”

The 1999 conflict in Glacier underscored the park-service-wide issues left unresolved after the original push to create air-tour management plans following the Grand Canyon accident. In 2000, Congress passed the National Park Air Tourism Act, which required the NPS and FAA to work together to develop air-tourism management plans for any park with 50 or more air tours over its landscape.

But no official plans were developed until PEER sued the FAA and park service four years ago on behalf of Glacier, Hawaii Volcanoes, and Haleakala National Parks, all of which were experiencing heavy sightseeing air traffic. In 2020, the U.S. Court of Appeals sided with PEER and ordered that the 24 eligible parks submit air-tour management plans by August 31, 2022.

“It’s the only law I know of that requires two large federal agencies to produce a management plan,” says PEER’S Ruch, speaking of the FAA and NPS. “The FAA’s role is to promote commercial air, but the national park’s role is to protect the park. From what we can tell, it took more than two decades and a lawsuit to get any plans developed because the agencies couldn’t agree on a management concept.”

A representative in the public relations department of the FAA declined to comment for this story, but sent a statement, which reads in part, “The FAA has sole authority to control U.S. airspace and thoroughly reviews the plans to ensure they comply with all safety protocols.” As of press time, efforts to reach the National Parks Overflights Advisory Program manager, who represents the NPS, were unsuccessful.

is the primary holder of flight permits over Glacier National Park. The company flies Cessna 206 planes, carrying up to five guests at a time on scenic flights several thousand feet over the park. According to John Noyes, chief pilot for the company, Red Eagle operates with wildlife and visitor impact in mind. “We stay way above the sensitive areas. Our guests will see Sperry Glacier, Heaven’s Peak…all the big features, but from a safe distance. The way we currently do our tours has no impact.”

Noyes is concerned that illegal helicopter tours that have flown over the park without a permit may have caused the park to take drastic action.

“I don’t want to hear helicopters when I’m in the park either,” Noyes says. “But a Cessna flying at 9,000 feet isn’t loud. The wildlife don’t even know we’re there.” Glacier Park tours, he says, are “a major revenue stream for this company. We fly 99 percent of the legal flights over the park.”

Webster agrees that illegal flights were originally one of the top concerns of Glacier’s park-management team, and says the main company then in question is no longer in operation. “Illegal flights are a concern and something we watch for,” Webster says. “And we established a sunset date for tours of Dec. 31, 2029, to allow commercial operators to operate at a current level and have time to sort out their business practices before the ban takes effect.”

In their statement to şÚÁĎłÔąĎÍř for this story, the FAA said: “The NPS and FAA complied with all applicable laws including the National Parks Air Tour Management Act, the National Environmental Protection Act, the Endangered Species Act and the National Historic Preservation Act. An important part of the process for each park was a public comment period and public meetings where the agencies presented the draft plan and answered questions.”

While Everglades National Park ended its air tours last year after the company that flew tours voluntarily surrendered its permit, of the nine other national parks that have submitted air-tour management plans, Glacier is the only one that has proposed phasing out flights altogether. Olympic and Mount Rainier National Parks, which see minimal sightseeing tours, have finalized their management plans. Olympic will allow 64 tours per year, and Rainier will allow one tour per year. (The average number of tours per year for Rainier between 2017 and 2019.) In contrast, Bryce Canyon’s plan calls for 515 tours per year, and Great Smoky Mountains National Park will allow 946.

Webster is comfortable with Glacier’s decision to phase out air traffic over the next six years and the decision process. “Air tours over Glacier have been a concern for decades, and the public has been overwhelmingly in support of our decision. It’s a complex issue, and there’s a lot of coordination that has to take place between two large federal agencies that look at things from different perspectives,” Webster says. “Yes, it took us a while to get here, and it did take a lawsuit and court order to get us going. Sometimes that’s what it takes with the government.”

Graham Averill, şÚÁĎłÔąĎÍř’s National Parks columnist, lives in Asheville, North Carolina. He hasn’t kept track of the number of national parks he’s visited, but knows for sure that for every visit, his feet were firmly planted on the ground.

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