Traveler's View | Early 2026 Musings From The Parks

The past year was particularly brutal for the National Park Service. It was one that sliced away roughly a quarter of the agency's workforce and left those remaining behind wondering if they, too, would lose their jobs while they tackle multiple roles in the parks.

Those who say the agency was bloated, including those within the Trump administration, fail to point out where that bloating resides. 

Workforce assessments can be productive, but the haphazard manner in which the administration has handled the Park Service this past year has been atrocious, using an approach not based in best management practices or mindful of the Park Service's nearly 110-year-old legislated mission.

That mission, of course, is to "promote and regulate the use of the Federal areas known as national parks, monuments, and reservations hereinafter specified by such means and measures as conform to the fundamental purpose of the said parks, monuments, and reservations, which purpose is to conserve the scenery and the natural and historic objects and the wild life therein and to provide for the enjoyment of the same in such manner and by such means as will leave them unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations."

In other words, the Park Service's mission is not simply to see that visitors have a good time. It's to ensure that wildlife and other natural resources, and cultural and historic objects, are left "unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations." That can't be accomplished with the loss of associate regional directors, chief rangers, geologists, wilderness coordinators, archaeologists, and other positions.

Don't forget that Interior Secretary Doug Burgum has said he wants to get rid of units of the National Park System that cost more to operate than they generate in visitor fees and purchases. But who will take them on if they are money losers? 

Back in the 1990s when Phil Francis was superintendent of the Blue Ridge Parkway he watched as the U.S. Forest Service in a nearby national forest outsourced some of its operations.

"I was interested in learning whether or not having private companies operate the visitor-use side of a forest was working and also did consolidation of administrative services across the USFS save money and improve efficiency?" explained Francis. "I remember sharing my findings with the NPS. One finding I shared was that the private sector operators couldn't make a profit so the non-profitable parts of the forest operation were left for the government to operate. ... Morale suffered, operations suffered, and resources and visitors were impacted."

Keep Your Music To Yourself

We heard him before we saw him. 

More than a mile down the Sliding Sands Trail at Haleakalā National Park in Hawai'i there normally are no sounds other than the sounds of nature and the footfall of hikers.

But the backpacker dressed fully in white announced his arrival with the blaring of his portable stereo system. Roughly a quarter mile away, coming down the trail above us, he took exception when we signaled that he needed to silence his stereo. 

There is no finite regulation against loud music in parks, but there is a regulation that prohibits manmade noise above 60 decibels, or about the background sound of a dishwasher or normal conversation. This lad surely was above that.

I've heard hikers on the Appalachian National Scenic Trail before I've seen them, but this hiker far surpassed their level of noise.

Woeful Waterworks

Big Bend National Park in Texas has joined Grand Canyon National Park in Arizona as parks where woeful waterworks are impacting visitors and park operations.

While Grand Canyon's water woes, tied to the leaking Transcanyon waterline that crews are working hard to replace, are well-known and have been around for years, Big Bend's water problems are more recent.

Driving the issue is the pipeline that draws water from Oak Spring and pumps it uphill roughly 2.5 miles to the Chisos Basin and the lodge there. Back in 2023 the Traveler was told that due to the exorbitant cost of finding a new water source and building a replacement pipeline (estimated at $70 million-$100 million), the Park Service was hoping that fixing the leaks and increasing storage from 500,000 gallons to 1 million gallons would extend the spring's life 10-20 more years. 

Well, early in 2025 that hope took a hit when a significant water line leak and ongoing drought conditions forced park staff at Big Bend to temporarily close the public-facing flush toilets in the Chisos Basin. A bigger hit struck on December 23 when the water pumps at Oak Spring "failed completely," prompting park visitors, concessions workers, and staff to conserve water.

"The park is urgently trying to expedite repair of the pumps, and there is no current timeline for when that repair will occur (but it is expected to take several weeks, at best)," said a park release sent January 3, or 11 days after the pumps failed.

According to park officials, if water levels in storage tanks in the basin drop too low for firefighting efforts, "closure of the area may be required."

More Money, Not Less

The National Park Service needs more money, much more money, in its budget, not less.

That's obvious just from the situations at Big Bend and Grand Canyon. More money also is needed for the agency to take care of the historic resources in the parks (more on that in an upcoming story from the Traveler), to continue to whittle away at the maintenance backlog, and to produce affordable, and liveable, housing for its employees.

And let's not forget the need to build a new north entrance road for Yellowstone National Park. Such a route was necessitated by the June 2022 flooding that took out sections of the long-used route that ran near the bottom of the Gardner Canyon just above the Gardner River.

For now visitors heading into the park from Gardiner, Montana, use a temporary road that required the regrading and expanding of the winding and rolling 4-mile-long Old Gardiner Road, which started out in the late-19th century as a stagecoach route.

The ultimate plan for rebuilding the North Entrance Road well could surprise many and represent a significant realignment from the path that's long been used to reach Mammoth Hot Springs from Gardiner, as rebuilding in the Gardner River Canyon would not necessarily eliminate the threat of future problems from flooding or landslides.

And it won't be cheap.