Federal Shutdown and Trails: Staff and Volunteer Activities Impacted

More than 50% of Oregon's land mass is federally managed lands, so the current federal shutdown is a having a variety of impacts on our state's trails, and none of them good!

Siskiyou Mountain Club hikes in with tools for a hitch restoring and maintaining trails in the Cascade Siskiyou National Monument in advance of the shutdown.

Developed Recreation Sites vs Trails and Dispersed Recreation

Many campgrounds and some developed day use sites on federal lands are operated by private concessionaires who are not directly impacted by the shutdown. Many of these sites are still open and fully serviced. Other front and backcountry trails, trailheads, etc, are also still open to the public but without the benefit of any staff to clean and restock restrooms, address maintenance or safety issues, or interact with visitors, enforce rules like burn bans, and address any behaviors causing risk to the land, water, or people.  

Volunteer Activities on Federal Lands

More than 50% of the maintenance of trails on Oregon's federal lands is conducted by partners and volunteers even in "normal" times, but many of these activities are also on hold. Some stewardship organizations in specific forests have received explicit permission to continue activities and others have not. Much of the volunteer trail stewardship on federal lands is on pause without the staff present to authorize activities and ensure support such as emergency dispatch and the liability and workers comp coverage authorized volunteers have access to the invent of an injury sustained while maintaining trails for the public good. This also all is happening in the context of unprecedented staffing shortages, and many remaining recreation staff being temporarily reassigned to fire.

The U.S. Forest Service Washington D.C. Office provided some broad scale clarification in a letter last week, and some news outlets such as Willamette Week have offered additional reporting. on the issue in Oregon, but for now the deferred maintenance backlog on our statewide trail network continues to grow to the detriment of the safety, health, and well-being of Oregonians, while stewardship organizations and individual volunteers that would like to roll-up their sleeves to keep Oregon trails open for all either look to non-federal trails for their volunteer work or are just stymied until work is once again authorized.