Does Yosemite National Park have enough staff to keep restrooms clean with all campgrounds open?/David and Kay Scott file

A lack of staffing at Yosemite National Park, and the decision to open campgrounds, has raised the prospect of existing staff being unable to maintain restrooms as visitors head to the park for some R&R.

"This past week, the acting superintendent of Yosemite National Park made the executive decision that we will be honoring all existing campground reservations. This means that we will be opening Lower Pines Campground, North Pines Campground, and the rest of Upper Pines Campground on schedule," a post earlier this week on a Reddit page dedicated to rangers said. "The kicker here is that we have not hired enough people to properly manage these hundreds of campsites and all of the restrooms that will be opening as well.

"Yosemite Custodial has not been able to hire any seasonal workers yet, and all permanent openings are still off the table for now. In lieu of this, leadership has asked everyone else to fill in and help clean the restrooms. That includes Interp, Wildlife, Fees, Volunteers, etc., scrubbing toilets until we can get custodial fully staffed later this summer," the post added.

Staff at Yosemite and the Washington, D.C., headquarters of the National Park Service did not respond to inquiries about this situation.

The Reddit post quickly drew more than 100 replies, with others questioning whether the staffers being asked to clean the restrooms would be supplied with personal protective equipment, training on dealing with hazardous wastes, and provided vaccinations to protect them against disease. There also was pushback against the use of volunteers to clean the facilities.

"This is also my argument against volunteers. I truly appreciate their spirit, but now is not the time to provide labor for free that might be used to justify not hiring (or worse, laying off) full time permanent staff," a post read. "If the restrooms fill up with shit because the park can't pay custodians, then they NEED to fill up with shit, until the visitors are screaming at their congressmen because grandma slipped in diarrhea and broke her hip and the local news shows are doing specials about the two-year-old who got hepatitis from touching a door handle."

Another worried that the possibly declining state of campground restrooms would lead some campers to relieve themselves "[O]utside, on the trails, in the rivers, garbage and shit everywhere. If a restroom is not available, people will find anywhere else to crap."

Others blamed the Trump administration for the problems.

"Not defending the decision, but right now, park leaders are not allowed to make changes to operating hours and services without leadership approval," they wrote. "Any reductions in services or changes in operating hours or facilities are being reviewed by political appointees in the Department of the Interior. I think there is a very good chance the acting superintendent was directed to do this. I expect that most large parks that drive significant parts of state and local economies are going to be forced to stay open and 'do more with less' in order to ensure that the American public doesn’t see impacts from staffing cuts."

Yet another, who identified as a former manager of the visitor bureau near the southern entrance to Yosemite, said the administration is trying to drive national parks towards privitization.

"Existing staff successfully filling in for unstaffed positions in the interim will have no effect on long-term staffing levels. DOGE and this administration's goals are not to cut costs or improve efficiency," they wrote. "They want to sell off public lands to private companies for resource extraction. If they make the experience of visiting our national parks unpleasant, I'm sure they think people won't push back as much when they sell them off for logging and strip mining. All the park workers can do is try and ride out the storm while political activists push back against these assaults on our precious natural habitats. I used to love working at the visitors bureau because people going to Yosemite were always so excited and happy to be there. I know the experience won't be the same as the administration is deliberately trying to make it miserable."