Our National Parks: Beauty, Burden, and Threats to the Future
A look at Park Visitorship and Funding in Washington and Nationwide
By Carrie Bassett - June 4, 2025
It is perhaps the most cliche answer I could give, but it is my primary response when asked why I moved to Seattle from Washington, DC nine years ago: “To be close to nature and mountains.” Hailing from the east coast, I didn’t know what I was in for. The beauty and ruggedness of Washington, and especially the state’s national parks, blew me away from the start. As a newcomer to the Pacific Northwest, I wondered… Was it normal to have three national parks in one state, and to be close enough for a day trip to any of them?
I quickly came to see how varied and diverse Washington’s parks are. To have volcanoes, rainforest, and ocean all within 200 miles of each other and within the bounds of the state’s federally regulated lands felt pretty special.
Mount Rainier National Park (MRNP) was the fifth National Park, established in 1899. This icy, active volcano ascends to 14,410 feet above sea level. It spawns five major rivers and is surrounded by subalpine wildflower meadows, ancient forest, and abundant wildlife. (Photo from the Burroughs Mountain Trail on the NE side of Rainier.) Source: Carrie Bassett
In addition to being one of only 26 UNESCO World Heritage sites in the U.S., Olympic National Park (ONP) is home to several endemic species. It also allows visitors to experience temperate rainforest, glaciated mountains and lakes, alpine meadows, and rugged coastline. (Photo from Second Beach in ONP) Source: Carrie Bassett
Boasting over 300 glaciers and countless snowfields, North Cascades National Park (NCNP) is one of the snowiest places on earth and the most heavily glaciated area in the United States outside of Alaska. (Photo looking down at the Quien Sabe Glacier from Sahale Peak.) Source: Carrie Bassett
While each of Washington’s parks is unique, one thing they all have in common is also something that sets them apart from their counterparts around the country: glaciers.
An area in which the parks differ from each other is in their annual visitation. Last year, ONP was the 10th most visited park and NCNP was second to last, behind only Gates of the Arctic, a park in Alaska that literally sits on the arctic circle.
To best understand park visitation data in Washington, however, we’re going to look at numbers for the North Cascades National Park Complex. This complex manages three park areas under one umbrella, including NCNP, Ross Lake National Recreation Area (NRA), and Lake Chelan NRA. Alex Day, the Marketing and Communications Director for Washington National Park Fund (WNPF) told me that “It's a little bit of a misnomer that North Cascades is this completely unvisited park. Many people actually don't even realize they're not in the National Park.” It turns out, the NCNP visitor center and main paved highway are actually located in Ross Lake NRA.
On one hand, it’s great that more people are partaking in America’s Best Idea. Steve Dubiel, Executive Director of WNPF, reminded me that “the national parks are there for people. That's why they were created.” He said parks are asking themselves “How do we welcome everybody in? Because it’s a magical experience.”
Not only do visitors benefit from the existence of parks, but local economies do as well. Day shared that “here in Washington, our three national parks generate $488.3 million in economic output and support more than 3,700 jobs.”
On the flip side, more people leads to harsher impact on park ecosystems. They can also dampen park-goers’ experiences. Susie Coy, a lifelong Washington resident, told me, “I grew up seeing Mt Rainier daily. I called it ‘my mountain.’ Going [there] was one of my favorite summer activities... It was a family destination and it wasn’t summer until we went at least once. Now, especially with the timed ticket entry, it feels less like home. But I’m so glad people want to enjoy my mountain!”
It would seem sensible that rising visitor numbers would trigger increased staffing and support. Unfortunately, the parks have struggled in these areas for a long time. To make matters worse, the National Park Service (NPS) is being hit by the current administration’s sweeping federal funding cuts. NPS is at risk of losing $1.2 billion of funding in 2026. At 38% of their overall budget, this is drastic and scary.
Dubiel says “there's news by the week in terms of what those cuts are. The parks have their hands full and I don't think we'll know until we're through the summer… how the parks are adapting to increased stress on the system, fewer resources, more visitation.”
Many parks already experienced layoffs after the new administration implemented changes in early 2025. Organizations like WNPF are working hard to help fill gaps where they can. They’ve launched a resilience fund to collect donations and provide some of that immediate funding that parks might need as things evolve.
Coy told me that the thought of closing parks or scaling back infrastructure makes her “heart literally break. I feel the closest to a higher power in the national parks and I want them around forever. I am terrified about NPS losing funding. But mostly that the land will die without protection. NPS are stewards of goodness and allow the lands to be wondrous for all.”
Dubiel says these parks are “treasures that we want to preserve for the next 1,000 years and beyond.”
Visitor numbers and the ability for staff and infrastructure to maintain the burden may be changing. But the soul of these places has not changed. They are mountains, coastline, glaciers, tropics, rainforest, desert, volcanoes, and canyons that predate humans by millions of years in most cases. They will evolve, as the earth has a way of doing, but they are likely to exist beyond our ability to explore them. The question for us in this moment is whether we will steward both the land and the great idea, to ensure these parks are around for future generations of people who travel the country and world to experience their beauty.