Around 800 people lined an entrance road to Rocky Mountain National Park on Saturday to push back on the Trump Administration’s firing of federal employees at the National Park Service.
The crowd chanted, drummed and cheered as passing cars honked in support. Attendees said they came from Estes Park, Fort Collins, Boulder and Denver.
The gathering lasted for several hours on a warm, sunny morning with snowy peaks in the distance, just over two weeks after about 1,000 Park Service employees were laid off as part of broader federal workforce reductions.
It was one of more than 150 protests at Park Service sites nationwide, organized by a group called Resistance Rangers, who said they’re made up of more than 700 off-duty or former park service staff and seasonal employees.
Aubry Andreas, who helped plan the protest at Rocky Mountain National Park, was fired on Feb. 14, just as she was preparing for the upcoming peak season. The Colorado park sees about 4 million visitors each year, the majority in the summer.
Andreas was the park’s only visual information specialist, designing and printing most of the paper-based information available to visitors, including maps, guides, campground permits and shuttle schedules.
“For example, the park map – I was in the middle of getting those ordered for the year, and so we’re not going to have maps for people,” she said.
People rely on the printouts, she said, because many areas lack cell service. In addition to her regular role, Andreas also served as a public information officer on interagency fire teams, helping to set up community meetings and answer questions as far away as on national forests in Oregon.
Andreas had worked in and around Rocky Mountain National Park since 2020 and landed the full-time role there last May. She said other employees who were fired worked at the front desk or collected entrance fees.
“A lot of the people we lost are boots-on-the-ground people who help keep this place running,” she said. Seeing the turnout for the protest, “doesn’t make it any easier,” she said, “but it does help knowing that people are behind us.”
Suzette Runyon, who attended the protest, said she started crying when she arrived.
“I realized I’ve been processing by myself, so it’s just really hopeful, I guess, to see everyone that’s supporting the parks,” she said.
Runyon, who was in Estes Park visiting family, was also fired from her Park Service job in February. She had worked at Carlsbad Caverns National Park in New Mexico, selling tickets and greeting tourists.
“There’s going to be longer lines, and all of the tours have been cancelled,” she said.
The park announced that self-guided tours and visitor center hours will also be more limited later this month.
There’s still confusion about staffing levels at parks for the summer season. Along with the cuts, non-profit advocacy groups report that 700 employees took the Trump Administration’s buyout offer. Then, the U.S. Department of Interior later announced that parks could hire more seasonal employees than usual, after an initial freeze on seasonal hiring.
In a statement, the National Park Service said it’s hiring seasonal workers as it embraces “new opportunities for optimization and innovation in workforce management.”
However, it’s unclear when seasonal employees will be hired and onboarded.
Legal battles are also ongoing over the federal firings. In one case, a judge ruled that they were likely illegal and ordered the Office of Personnel Management to rescind the memos directing the terminations at several agencies, including the National Park Service. However, it’s uncertain whether this will lead to the reinstatement of the already cut jobs.
Andreas said she would return to Rocky Mountain National Park “in a heartbeat.”
“We don’t do this for the money. We do this because we love the parks,” she said.
This story was produced by the Mountain West News Bureau, a collaboration between Wyoming Public Media, Nevada Public Radio, Boise State Public Radio in Idaho, KUNR in Nevada, KUNC in Colorado and KANW in New Mexico, with support from affiliate stations across the region. Funding for the Mountain West News Bureau is provided in part by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
