Backlogged and DOGE-depleted: Forest Service report raises alarm over trail health

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Careers in public education — as a teacher and a school counselor, respectively — offered longtime Lander residents Del Nelson and Bill Lee summertime freedom.

Another thing they had in common was love for the rugged mountains. That inspired each man to sign up for seasonal U.S. Forest Service posts and disappear into the mountains every summer. It also contributed to a decades-long friendship.

Mostly, the men worked on the rugged 2.5-million-acre Shoshone National Forest, which stretches from the Montana border to the edge of the Red Desert in Western Wyoming. They worked as rangers, forestry technicians, campground hosts and fire crew. Over the decades they built bridges, cleared trees, drove fire engines, cleaned up after messy campers and repaired infrastructure. 

“I would say my job was ‘T to T,’ tickets to toilets,” Nelson said. 

“We had the best job, Del and I,” Lee added. “It was good times.”

Even after retiring from education, Nelson and Lee both continued to work seasonal forest gigs, amassing 90 years between them. But after Lee retired from his seasonal recreation work in 2024, the agency cut his position. Then it eliminated Nelson’s, Lee said, citing lack of funding. 

This was before President Donald Trump and Elon Musk launched the Department of Government Efficiency in 2025 to vastly reduce government spending. 

“And then DOGE came in and just did a hatchet job, and we have not recovered, and nor does it look like we’re going to recover anytime in the near future,” Lee said.

In Wyoming, where nearly 50% of the land is managed by the federal government for public use and enjoyment, the layoffs, cuts and policy changes deeply impacted the U.S. Forest Service district offices. 

Now, an internal federal report, which surfaced in December, reveals dire warnings from Forest Service personnel about the future of the agency’s recreation amenities unless issues like critical vacancies, depleted staff, unfunded contracts and chaotic communication are addressed. The Trails Program Status Report described districts that lost up to 100% of their trail staff, including decades of trail expertise, and are now suffering widespread burnout. 

“Public access, visitor satisfaction, and recreation-based economic contributions will continue to decline in 2026 and beyond without direction to prioritize investments in recreation generally and the trails program specifically,” the report reads. “This would include action in hiring, clearer communication, and improvements around grants and agreement management. Without this support, the agency risks losing decades of investment in trail infrastructure.”

Wyoming agency staffers have declined to speak on record about DOGE since Trump took office. Lee and Nelson, however, have no qualms or restrictions. After both men spent the 2025 field season volunteering on the Shoshone National Forest, repairing signs, fixing picnic tables and observing eroded trail sections, they say the concerns underscored in the report are valid and critical.  

“We made it through this last year, but it’s not sustainable,” Lee said. “Stuff is going to build up.”

What Lee observes is insufficient staffing and resources to tackle the amount of work necessary to steward and maintain the resource. 

Most concerning, Lee said, “is the lack of seasonal people that do the work on the ground. They’ve been wiped out.”

That leaves permanent specialists without the crews to implement their programs and all but guarantees backlogs build up. “As far as maintenance, it just isn’t getting done because there’s not enough people,” Lee said. 

‘It ain’t feasible’

It has been difficult to identify how many jobs DOGE impacted in Wyoming’s public land management agencies. Federal agencies have declined to share that information. Anecdotal reports, however, indicate several district offices in Wyoming’s eight national forests were hardest hit. 

In February, job cuts gutted the Shoshone National Forest’s Washakie District office in Lander. The office closed temporarily to the public, citing insufficient staff to remain open. 

Lee followed the upheaval in his local district office with great concern, stopping by regularly to check in. While talking with an employee last spring about a trails crew that had diminished in the recent past from nearly a dozen to two, he said, the cuts’ implications really started to dawn on him.  

“I said, ‘I wonder what a year is going to be like with two people in recreation for [the Dubois and Lander area] to get the job done?’” Lee recalled. “And I said, ‘it ain’t feasible.’”

So he volunteered to help with general maintenance or smaller tasks. Nelson, meanwhile, volunteered as a campground host, a job that would also see him doing repairs on the forest. Barb Gustin, another retired staffer, volunteered to man the Lander office’s vacant front desk through the busy summer months. 

Lee was torn, he said, by the thought that, “if I do too much, then [critics] are gonna say we don’t need the position.” But in the end, his concern for the land prevailed. He spent many days working alongside Nelson. The men repaired docks, secured loose signs, cleaned bathrooms and educated campers about fire rules. 

They worked mainly in the frontcountry, and what they witnessed made them worried not only about the campgrounds and parking lots, but also the roughly 1,300 miles of trails in the forest. Without sufficient trails crews, they said, the district lacks the manpower to clear trees, fix water bars, watch for erosion and steward the paths. If the trend continues, it only becomes harder to turn it around. 

Much of their sentiment was mirrored in the December Washington Office Trails Program report, which the Washington Post first published. 

Compiled by asking nearly 300 district-level staff to assess trails operations challenges, the report listed critical vacancies, seasonal hiring restrictions, staff reassignments and lost skills that are “weakening the agency’s ability to implement technical projects and oversee partner, volunteer, and contractor work, which is leading to unpassable trails, unsafe bridges, and negative environmental impacts.”

Positions critical to keeping wilderness trails open are vacant, the report says, and unclear communication and inconsistent messaging coming from higher-ups is eroding morale. Backcountry trails are being neglected, deferred maintenance is compounding. In addition, “millions of dollars of unspent grant funds have been returned due to key vacancies, no temporary workforce, and lengthy or stalled agreement processes.” 

The number of miles maintained was down 22%, according to the report, with just 19% designated as meeting standard. That marks the “lowest accomplishments in 15 years.”

The report also included quotes from agency personnel portraying deflated skeleton crews with impossible workloads. 

“I have never lacked for motivation for trail work until now,” reads one. “It feels like we are on the verge of not passing anything on for the future, and that feels like 24 years of trails and wilderness work rolling back to the bottom of the hill.”

In a Jan. 16 post, Forest Service Chief Tom Schultz struck a more positive tone. While the agency becomes leaner, Schultz’s aim is to refocus on “fundamental work that delivers the greatest good to the American people.”

That includes cutting red tape, managing more productive forests and ensuring outdoor access, he wrote online. 

“Expanding that access and improving visitor experience is a major priority,” he wrote. “We’re modernizing trails, campgrounds, and facilities; improving roads and recreation sites; strengthening on-the-ground engagement; and using tools like Recreation.gov to help visitors plan safe, enjoyable trips.”

Disconnects

Schultz’s message is at odds with what Lee sees in the forest and hears from staffers.

One Wyoming Forest Service employee, who agreed to speak on condition of anonymity for fear of losing their job, said their work life has been dominated by uncertainty and fear as Washington communications have become unclear, inconsistent, politicized or absent. The employee, a natural resource specialist, has seen their own team reduced dramatically, and notes it’s much more than recreation being affected. The Forest Service also oversees grazing management, post-fire recovery, watershed and habitat protection, cultural resource stewardship, and a wide range of restoration.

“It’s not just recreation,” they said. “All Forest Service staff are suffering.”

Employees are being asked to do work not in their contracts as well as accomplish their normal workload with severely diminished resources, the employee said. In addition, a string of out-of-left-field directives and disruptions has raised stress to unacceptable levels as staffers fear for their jobs. 

“It’s just exhausting, it’s not sustainable and there’s no end site,” the employee said. “I think everybody’s just kind of hanging in there because we really care deeply about our work as public servants and the mission of the Forest Service. But it’s also devastating on a daily basis.”

Nelson sees another disconnect. It used to be that the majority of agency staff, regardless of their title, had hands-on experience on a forest. That no longer seems to be the case, he said. Agency brass, he added, increasingly don’t seem to recognize the value of “just being up there” — spending time on and developing intimate knowledge of the land and water by sleeping under the stars, watching wildlife and enjoying the peace. 

Both men have ample experience of that value — be it on the Shoshone National Forest or elsewhere. They have watched family and strangers fundamentally changed by public lands experiences. Nelson himself recalls returning to the classroom each fall refreshed from a summer spent outside.

For Lee, being outdoors is humbling and majestic, the value “priceless.”

“To me it’s spiritual,” he said. “It’s good for the soul. It’s good for the heart.”

Recommendations 

Nelson first worked for the agency in 1970; Lee in 1979. Over the decades, the men witnessed many changes. Rutted dirt roads were paved, trails were built and uses like ATVs, mountain bikes and climbing became more prominent. The nature of users expanded and evolved with social media and widespread promotion. Camping trailers became wildly popular.

One thing that was constant, Lee said, is Wyoming residents’ love for public lands. “They are important to all of us,” he said. Now, he feels they are in danger.

The December internal report included recommendations, such as expediting temporary seasonal hiring, allowing for extensions of certain permanent seasonal positions, increasing capacity for supporting partnerships and providing “accurate, consistent messaging from leadership to all levels of the agency.” 

Hiring temporary seasonal staff is an urgent need, Lee said. While volunteer labor is helpful, he said, it’s not as efficient or effective as paid staff. 

As for Lee and Nelson? Lee plans to volunteer again — and to continue speaking for the agency’s needs as others clam up for fear of reprisals. “It’s my way of pushing back against what I think is really wrong and tragic,” he said.

Nelson, meanwhile, isn’t so sure. 

“I don’t know,” the 81-year-old said on a recent afternoon. “I may, if something needed to be done…”

At that, Lee piped up immediately. 

“You know, we gotta fix the dock!” he said, referring to a structure at Louise Lake. “That table’s busted. We’ve got to fix it!”