Every year, a popular hiking destination in Washington’s Alpine Lakes Wilderness known as the Enchantments sees upwards of 100,000 visitors. It’s part of the Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest, and, like most public lands, its trails are maintained through exquisite coordination between federal agencies, stewardship organizations, private groups and armies of volunteers. But recent federal budget cuts have triggered rippling delays: In February, the Forest Service’s local equine stock program was gutted, meaning that mules could no longer carry supplies to support necessary trail work deep in the backcountry. As a result, the wilderness protection nonprofit Washington Trails Association (WTA) decided to withhold maintenance crews for the Enchantments area’s trails. Weeks later, the Forest Service district regained its pack string, but by then, it was too late — the WTA no longer had the capacity to pencil in a new expedition for the season. This summer, visitors are more likely to encounter accumulated debris, damaged tread and overgrown brush on trails.
The business of trail work is like dominoes: When one tile falls, the next one lurches, and the effects cascade downstream. The Forest Service authorizes projects and provides much of the funding, logistical support and institutional knowledge needed to complete them, while trail associations like the WTA contribute crucial labor and technical expertise. “We’re most concerned about our ability to support gaps on the federal landscape,” said Jen Gradisher, WTA’s trail programs director, in an email. “It’s safe to say that a lot of high-use trails in (our) districts are not seeing the level of support we would typically provide this year.”
The trail-work community is anticipating a chaotic summer of delayed or deferred maintenance, thanks to recent federal policy. Soon after President Donald Trump took office in January, he paused all congressionally approved federal spending, and — despite court orders for the release of those funds — grants and agreements between agencies and their partners have been slow to resume. Meanwhile, federal workers have also departed in droves, either fired or leaving voluntarily through multiple rounds of deferred resignation offers. Then, on July 8, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the executive branch can continue with its mass layoffs. Now, various government departments, including the U.S. Department of Agriculture, are expected to cull even more of their agencies’ staffs.
In the Pacific Northwest Region of the Forest Service, only three-quarters of the agency’s procurement team is on hand to process the paperwork needed for trail projects that involves external partners, according to one regional staffer, who spoke anonymously because he wasn’t authorized to engage with the media. His district will only be able to tackle a third of this year’s planned projects. On top of that, he is scaling back those projects: Instead of more ambitious fixes, such as replacing boardwalks and bridges, trail crews will do the bare minimum required to keep trails open — chores like logging out downed trees and clearing overgrown brush.
Having fewer employees also means delays in work approvals for projects that involve the agency’s nonprofit partners. A single late signature from the agency can derail an entire project. According to Jeff Kish, executive director of the Pacific Northwest Trail Association (PNTA), the association lost $200,000 worth of trail work opportunities because the agreement paperwork was not completed before the federal funding freeze in February. Though funding has resumed, he added, it’s not being put to work: “The money is moving, but there’s no people to actually move it.” Overall, the organization’s financial shortfall has been equivalent to nearly a third of its annual budget, so it has had to reduce its overall trail workforce from 70 members to 28.
In response to questions about the potential disruptions to trail upkeep, a USDA spokesperson reiterated the importance of maintaining access to recreation areas as part of the agency’s mission. “The Forest Service remains committed to safeguarding public health and safety while maintaining access to recreation areas,” the agency wrote in a statement.
NATURE IS ALREADY relentlessly reclaiming existing trails. Underfunded and understaffed, the Forest Service can maintain only a third of the trails it oversees, according to one 2012 estimate. Usually, the coalition of organizations involved in trail preservation can, at least, protect the most popular trails. “This year, it’s not even going to be close,” Kish said. “It’s a catastrophe.”
The Pacific Northwest Trail Association has already seen delays in one of its annual priority projects: clearing debris from Washington’s Pasayten Wilderness before the bulk of Pacific Northwest Trail thru-hikers arrive. Before that work can even start, the crew needs to open up several 20-mile-long access trails so stock animals can ferry supplies for their human co-workers. This preparatory step alone normally takes up half the season, and that was when PNTA still had 12 full-time workers assigned to the expedition. This year’s crew will be just four people. “With the capacity that we’re at right now, my fear is we’ll spend all summer opening up the access trails and run out of money before we can even work on our trail,” Kish said.
“This year, it’s not even going to be close. It’s a catastrophe.”
Elsewhere, other projects have been canceled or severely downsized. The Montana Conservation Corps has called off trail-maintenance expeditions in the Kootenai National Forest, and two crews working in the Big Prairie and Schafer Meadows ranger districts will now operate at half capacity — down from six people each to just three. “Getting to the starting line for the trail work season has been quite the struggle,” said Gavin Wisdom, regional director for the Northern Rockies branch at Montana Conservation Corps.
For now, the Forest Service and its partners operate in triage mode when deciding where to spend their drastically curtailed resources. Multiple organization leaders said their priority was keeping the primary trails open. But what gets left behind are the network of secondary and tertiary trails — and the people who use them. Having fewer trails funnels visitors onto the ones that remain, however crowded, increasing wear and tear on them and hastening the need for more upkeep.
The disrupted maintenance schedules will also affect local businesses that depend on recreation. Yve Bardwell is co-owner of Dropstone Outfitting, a company that offers hunting expeditions in Montana’s Spotted Bear Ranger District every fall, but she expects that she’ll have to cancel them this year. Two decades of burns have left toppled lodgepole pine, Douglas fir and spruce, and the backcountry trails Dropstone uses are unlikely to be on the Forest Service’s priority list for clearing. “I would anticipate (the Forest Service) not being able to get to it,” she said.
While her team tidies up some of the trails it uses, it won’t have time to get to all of them, as that would eat into the valuable summer tourist season. “People don’t think something as simple as clearing trees off of a trail impacts an economy the way that it does.”
With all the delays in trail upkeep, future maintenance costs will only grow exponentially. “The analogy I like to say is, it’s like maintaining your car,” said PNTA’s Kish. Neglecting basic trail maintenance will lead to bigger problems later — catastrophic damage that will cost more to repair than years of basic upkeep, Kish added.
But Kish is hopeful that after this whole fiasco, when the damage to unmaintained trails becomes too severe to ignore, the public will wake up to the importance of investing in the nation’s public lands. “In the short term, I think it’s very bleak,” Kish said, “but my hope is that, within a few years — maybe after an administration change — the public gets it, and there’s going to be a real outcry for restoring what’s been lost and making sure it never gets lost again.”
Note: This story was updated to correct the name of the Pacific Northwest Trail and to clarify that several 20-mile access trails need to be opened for stock animals to ferry supplies, not just one 20-mile access trail.
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