MOUNT RAINIER, Wash. — When Hanford McCloud looks at the towering volcano that is the namesake of Mount Rainier National Park, he thinks about the generations of his ancestors that came before them. Called Tahoma by the indigenous tribes in Western Washington, McCloud says the mountain is the “beacon” of what lives in its shadows.
“She gives us life here in this region,” McCloud said. “She’s sitting there, she’s controlling the weather to make sure the rain stays over here for her children: the salmon, the animals, and all of the things she brought here before us. It’s our job now to take care of that.”
McCloud uses cedar from the park to weave hats, baskets, and other items, a skill that was passed down from his mother and her mother before that.
“These areas were protected for generations, upon generations upon generations. The sweat equity that my ancestors put in, I want to make sure is still there for my kids and their generation as they get older, so we have that value there.” McCloud said.
On Saturday, McCloud, his wife, and his children joined nearly 200 others at the Nisqually gate to Mt. Rainier to protest the recent cuts to park staff nationwide. Hundreds more joined across the sound at Olympic National Park, part of a national demonstration in support of park rangers nationwide.
The White House’s Department of Government Efficiency announced the firing of 1,000 newer park rangers earlier this year. After some pushback, including from President Donald Trump’s interior secretary, Doug Berman, 50 were reinstated. The cuts to staffing at National Parks are part of a stated effort of fiscal responsibility and removing wasteful spending in the government.
“There hasn’t been a review of the existing budget,” said Jim Walsh, the chair of the Washington State GOP who supports scaling down the federal government’s size. He yearns for a zero-base budget where agencies advocate for all their funding from the start rather than adding new funding from existing budgets.
“Whenever the Parks Service is pressed for efficiency, they tend to respond by changing the locks on the doors to the outward facing facilities. That creates a sense of hardship and allows them to argue against budget reform.
KIRO 7 News spoke to several park rangers at the protest Saturday who feared to go on the record for fear of retribution and described parks running on tight budgets already. In 2024, the National Park Service released a report detailing a $23 Billion maintenance backlog.
It all comes as parks, particularly Mt. Rainier, are seeing more visitors. To manage crowds, Rainier and other popular parks have implemented timed-entry reservations during peak seasons to avoid overcrowding staff and amenities. A retired park ranger, whom we will call John to hide his identity, disagrees with Walsh’s assessment of Park Staff. He says that during situations like shutdowns, parks are required to stay open but unstaffed, meaning trash builds up and facilities are unkempt.
“It’s kind of getting to the point where we’re kind of loving them to death,” John said.
John says jobs that had hundreds of applicants when he started had been difficult to fill towards the end of his career. He remembers days of working unpaid hours to complete work that had to be done. He doesn’t blame people for wanting to be paid for all the hours they work, understanding the pay isn’t as desirable as it once was.
“We refer to it as getting paid in sunsets sometimes,” John said.
John had been a ranger in Rainier for 34 years, now volunteering with an organization that supports conservation at the park. That work and a relative who is a current Park Ranger have him fearing repercussions for speaking out.
During his decades of service, he says more parks were added, but the NPS budget didn’t increase accordingly.
“You’ve had an erosion of your current funding, and at the same time, your costs go up,” John said.
John says he’s specifically concerned about wildfire response and search and rescue efforts during the peak season. After pushback, the Department of the Interior says it will add 7,700 seasonal workers in the summer, more than the around 6,200 average over the last three years.
“Park visitation has expanded to the point where it’s all months during the year, including the wintertime. It’s gotten quite busy,” John said.
McCloud looks at the increase in visitors as a positive influence on the spaces he grew up appreciating. He hopes the people proposing the cuts will spend time experiencing the places that are affected.
“The money guys that are sitting at the table making these decisions, they’re surrounded by all four walls, so they don’t get to see anything of importance that this money is coming into, but if they were to come here and see this firsthand where this money is going to and how much it has provided here in this region,” he said.
McCloud has a suggestion for the federal government if it seeks to continue the cuts or to cut back on the management and conservation of national parks like Olympic and Rainier. “From the indigenous perspective, they took this area from us, and now they don’t want to do anything with it.” McCloud said, “Give it back to us and let us take care of it.”
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