Trump’s Forest Service firings killed dreams, left big holes to fill in WA
Mar. 7—They empty trash bins at trailheads. Dig pit toilets at backcountry campsites. Cut down trees in campgrounds at risk of falling on unsuspecting campers. Carve up logs that have fallen across hiking trails — often with hand saws. They’re first on the scene responding to a hiker’s broken leg in a fall that happened 10 miles from the nearest road. They coordinate tens of thousands of volunteer hours annually to rebuild trails. They are the workers in the recreation departments of the U.S. Forest Service.
The Forest Service employs 1,563 people in Washington, according to the state’s Employment Security Department. Last month, 125 of them lost their jobs as part of the Trump administration’s sweeping effort to shrink the federal workforce.
The Seattle Times interviewed a dozen current and former Forest Service employees who were caught in the budget cuts. Most of those fired were early in their careers and more likely to work boots-on-the-ground jobs. (Few predominantly administrative or desk-based workers were fired.) The proverbial ax came down on these literal ax wielders because they were probationary — meaning less than one year into a full-time job, something they had earned after many years of seasonal work, and often hoped would be a pathway to a stable career.
On Feb. 27, a federal judge in San Francisco ruled that the Office of Personnel Management, which orchestrated the firings under the direction of Trump adviser Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, did not have authority to fire employees in other departments. On March 5, the federal Merit Systems Protection Board ordered the temporary reinstatement of 6,000 U.S. Department of Agriculture employees who were fired while under probation. The Forest Service is part of the USDA. While several of the people The Seattle Times interviewed believe they are eligible for reinstatement, they have not yet been offered their jobs back.
In the meantime, here are stories of some of the people who worked backbreaking jobs for modest pay that leaves hands calloused and fingernails caked with dirt. As trails go uncleared and bathrooms overflow, their absence from the Forest Service’s workforce will undoubtedly be felt when you’re exploring Washington’s federally owned public lands this year.
Jaelle Downs
* Age: 32
* Residence: Ellensburg
* Job: Forestry technician
* Ranger district: Cle Elum, Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest
* Length of Forest Service tenure: 7 years
Like many Forest Service employees, Jaelle Downs was a jack-of-all-trades. She worked as a botany technician and wilderness ranger, as well as on trail crews and mule packing teams. Most winters, she staffed popular Sno-Parks like Cabin Creek, Crystal Springs and Gold Creek, where she picked up trash from parking lots, removed logs from trails and cleared snow from chemical toilets.
In years past, she drove the groomer that laid fresh corduroy for cross-country skiers in the Salmon La Sac Sno-Park. She was most passionate about her role as a wilderness ranger. As a certified forest protection officer, she kept a watchful eye on some of the district’s most popular backcountry destinations in the Alpine Lakes Wilderness, like Rachel Lake, Rampart Lakes, Peggy’s Pond and Tuck and Robin Lakes. The work was not glamorous, from digging new holes when human waste reaches capacity in pit toilets at backcountry campsites to issuing citations for drone usage in wilderness areas.
Downs, who grew up in Ellensburg, stumbled into a Forest Service career after graduating from college with a biology degree and a vague notion that she liked to work outside. While working her first temporary seasonal job, she met the Cle Elum Ranger District’s lead wilderness ranger. He was nearing retirement and began mentoring her — a professional relationship that seemed to reach fruition when Downs was offered a permanent job last year. Despite the firing, Downs remains committed to public service in Washington’s wilderness. “We love taking care of our public lands to make sure they’re there for people to enjoy for perpetuity and I’m scared that nobody’s going to be doing that work,” she said. “I would 100% go back, even if it takes a while.”
Seth Holton
* Age: 45
* Residence: Glacier, Whatcom County
* Job: Backcountry ranger
* Ranger district: Mount Baker, Mount Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest
* Length of Forest Service tenure: 11 years
A former pro BMX rider and Seattle bike messenger, Seth Holton traded the handlebars for a saw and bustling downtown for sleepy Glacier. With a district that stretches from deep in the forest to high in the alpine, his job ranged as widely as the terrain he was responsible for. As winter faded, he started off the season felling dead and dying trees at campgrounds and trailheads that might pose a risk to visitors. Then he segued into trail work, covering hundreds of miles of trail to remove blowdowns.
Often among the first people to hike a given stretch of trail in the spring or summer, he made diligent reports of trail conditions. At trailheads across the North Cascades, hikers would see his notes scribbled on a trailhead bulletin board indicating how much snow is left on a trail and whether it was buggy or muddy. As Holton roamed higher in elevation, he would assess the glaciated routes up Mount Baker and share his firsthand observations with both private and guided climbing groups.
Trails get busy during the peak of summer in the Mount Baker Ranger District, so a lot of Holton’s job also involved helping hikers, especially the underprepared, manage expectations. An 8-mile hike might have sounded reasonable to tackle in a day on paper, but when Holton, at his post, provides context that the trail is rocky and will make for slower going than expected, his advice could help change minds and prevent a group from unexpectedly getting caught out overnight. Plus, he always carried a radio and could relay for help if he encountered hikers in distress. “You’re the eyes and ears,” he said. After putting in his time for over a decade, the ability to roam freely through the North Cascades high country was a dream job. “I could make a lot more money doing a normal job,” he said. “But that’s not why people want these jobs.”
Alex Mason
* Age: 32
* Residence: Winthrop, Okanogan County
* Job: Wilderness trails crew leader
* Ranger district: Methow Valley, Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest
* Length of Forest Service tenure: 6 years
Alex Mason knows her way around a saw. She’s certified to use a crosscut saw for bucking, or cutting up downed trees, and to supervise others — like the teams she led into remote corners of the Pasayten Wilderness. While a healthy coterie of volunteers converge on the Methow Valley Ranger District every summer, Mason’s crew intentionally tackled the least popular trails volunteers were unlikely to rally behind. In a 2024 report to the Dianne and Joe Hofbeck Pasayten Wilderness Trails Trust, which funded her crew’s work, Mason described the day-by-day effort to remove 600 trees along a nearly lost stretch of trail damaged by the 2017 Diamond Creek fire. On a particularly productive “hitch,” as a weeklong backcountry work trip is called, Mason estimates her crew could remove as many as 800 downed trees.
Given the number of wildfires active in the Pasayten over the last several years, there is no shortage of work to be done along trails that access both the Pacific Crest Trail and Pacific Northwest Trail — many of which risk becoming obliterated as downed trees and new vegetation erase any semblance of a trail. But with Mason’s firing, the last of the Methow Valley Ranger District’s field-based employees are gone, and the prospects of this sort of trail work continuing in 2025 are pretty dim. “Everything that doesn’t get done this year is going to increase the backlog,” Mason said. “It will probably take many years to catch back up.”
Raymond Beaupre
* Age: 33
* Residence: Winthrop, Okanogan County
* Job: Trails lead and volunteer coordinator
* Ranger district: Methow Valley, Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest
* Length of Forest Service tenure: 9 years
Every summer, the Methow Valley Ranger District is a hotbed of volunteer activity. An alphabet soup of organizations fan out across 1,100 miles of trail that crisscross this corner of the North Cascades: Backcountry Horsemen of Washington, Methow Valley Trails Collaborative, Pacific Crest Trail Association, Pacific Northwest Trail Association, Washington Conservation Corps and Washington Trails Association.
Until recently, it was volunteer coordinator Raymond Beaupre’s job to make sure they knew where they were going in the backcountry, which campsites were safe in burn areas and how to find water. Beaupre also prepared emergency action and radio communication plans for volunteer groups, and did basic training on trail work.
“I can be way greater than the sum of my parts,” he said, noting that he managed logistics for hundreds of people every summer. The role had become increasingly important given how professional Forest Service trail crews were whittled to the bone — all the more so with the Biden administration’s 2024 decision to not hire temporary seasonal employees. As Beaupre put it, “They pulled the meat out of the sandwich and then we were the bread and lettuce that was left.”
Alex Ross
* Age: 34
* Residence: Lakewood, Pierce County
* Job: Off-highway vehicle trails lead
* Ranger district: Snoqualmie, Mount Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest
* Length of Forest Service tenure: 10 years
In his decade with the Forest Service, Alex Ross carved out a specialty in off-road vehicle trails. When he was fired in February, he was gearing up for a big year of trail work at the Evans Creek Off-Road Vehicle Park. The park, just outside the Mowich Lake entrance to Mount Rainier National Park, offers 40 miles of single-track and dual-track trails for 4x4s, motorcycles and other off-road toys. Driving these trails is a popular pastime for nearby residents of east Pierce and Southeast King County, but heavy vehicles and wet winters are a recipe for constant trail maintenance. Ross estimates that in the five years he’s been based out of the district’s Enumclaw field office, where the park has been one of his primary responsibilities, he has led construction on two bridges strong enough to support a 500-pound dirt bike and helped crews build five other crossings.
This year, Ross was gearing up to lead a group of volunteers from the Washington Off Highway Vehicle Association and Northwest Motorcycle Association on some major trail rehabilitation, including replacing bridge decking for Jeeps. Ross has an excavator, tractor and construction materials at his disposal that complement what the volunteer groups provide. Now there is no one left in the district to lead the charge on priorities and guidelines. Unsupervised volunteer work will likely proceed, but Ross estimates upward of 75% of this year’s planned projects, many funded by the Legacy Roads and Trails Program, are in jeopardy. A yearslong effort to build relationships with local riding clubs is now for naught. “It basically fell apart overnight,” he said. “Evans Creek is going to be left to the wolves.”