Trailheads near Snoqualmie Pass are closed to recreation because of staffing shortages after the National Park Service and U.S. Forest Service terminated thousands of employees last week.

Under orders from President Donald Trump, 3,400 U.S. Forest Service employees and 1,000 National Park Service employees lost their jobs, Reuters reported Feb. 14. The cuts targeted employees who were in a probationary period and are part of Trump and billionaire Elon Musk’s efforts to increase government efficiency.

The Forest Service put up signs on the road to the Franklin Falls and Denny Creek trailheads the following weekend reading: “Due to the large-scale termination of Forest Service employees, Franklin Falls and the Denny Creek Trailhead are CLOSED. This site will reopen when we return to appropriate staffing levels.”⁠

The Mountains to Sound Greenway Trust posted a photo of the signage on Instagram and garnered a lot of attention — nearly 4,000 likes compared to their usual 100 or so, and over 100 comments.

Katie Egresi, the trust’s communication manager, confirmed that the photo was sent in by a Forest Service staff member who wanted the trust to help get the word out.

Jon Hoekstra, executive director of the Mountains to Sound Greenway Trust, said King County quickly added more signage and barricades at the road closure after the original signage went up.

The trust received some comments on its Instagram post that this road is always closed in the winter due to weather and this was nothing new. But actually, Hoekstra said, this was the first winter the Franklin Falls parking lot was open as the Franklin Falls Sno-Park, a collaborative effort between the Forest Service, Washington State Parks and King County.

Now, the park is closed indefinitely.

“It was a place where people could go for snow play, but that required the Forest Service, as the land manager, to have staffing, and they didn’t,” Hoekstra said. “That’s why it got closed.”

Other commenters argued that they will simply walk around the barricades to access the trailheads. While pedestrians technically can do this, Hoekstra does not advise it.

“There’s a safety risk there, that if the road is not passable because of weather, or worse yet, if the road is blocked because people have just parked in a way that if there were an emergency and emergency vehicles couldn’t be in there, there’s concern that you could have a rescue issue,” he said.

In addition to keeping roads accessible, Forest Service rangers do a lot to maintain the land, Hoekstra said. They pick up and pack out the trash. They organize the pumping of the pit toilets. They clear logs off the trail after a storm. During an emergency, they are often the first responders on the scene. Generally, they are there for visitors’ questions and needs.

Forest Service rangers are also an important part of wildfire response.

“Almost all of the frontline Forest Service staff also have their red cards,” he said, “which means that in the event of a wildfire, they can be called up to supplement the full-time wildfire firefighter crews.”

There are concerns about how these staffing shortages will affect wildfire prevention and response during the upcoming wildfire season. On Feb. 18, U.S. Rep. Kim Schrier, who represents the Snoqualmie Valley as part of Washington’s 8th Congressional District, posted on X voicing her disappointment.

“The @ForestService layoffs are already hurting our community, with dozens of local employees out of jobs and sites like the Denny Creek Trailhead closing down due to staffing shortages,” she wrote. “And it’s only going to get worse. Fire season is coming, and this disastrous decision is putting the Eighth District at risk.”

Kate White, a U.S. Forest Service wilderness ranger who has worked in the Cascades since 2017, posted on Instagram announcing she had lost her job as part of the federal cuts. According to her post, she received a letter that read: “The Agency finds, based on your performance, that you have not demonstrated that your further employment at the Agency would be in the public interest.”

White’s post said her district has been left with one field recreation employee to cover her district, which has 340,000 acres of land.

For now, Hoekstra said visitors should be extra careful recreating in areas with staffing shortages — and be extra thankful for the public services that are still being provided.

“Appreciate the public servants that take care of those public lands,” he said. “We oftentimes don’t see or appreciate what they do, but I think we’re going to start to see the consequences of them not being there for us.”