With 124 state parks, three national parks, 3,000 miles of coastline, and over 12,000 climbing routes, Washington state is a haven for outdoor enthusiasts. There’s a reason it attracts hundreds of thousands of visitors a year.
And yet, for all of the outdoor experiences this Pacific Northwest gem offers, it lacks adequate funding. Recent budget cuts have forced the state’s Department of Natural Resources (DNR) to close multiple campgrounds and limit visitor services.
What Happened
Unlike the federal government, almost all states, including Washington, can’t run at a deficit and are constitutionally required to have a balanced budget. This means that during economic downturns, legislators have to make funding cuts.
Washington, which runs on a 2-year budget system, cut several items for its 2025–2027 budget, including public health and Medicaid. The budget also included an $8 million cut to Washington DNR, which manages 5.6 million acres of state public land. This cut, which represents a 20% decrease from the prior year, also included a $580,000 cut to the maintenance budget.
While the agency increased the price for its Discover Pass, an annual pass that gives access to state land areas, it estimates that this will only bring in around $1.2 million in revenue from 2025 to 2027.
In a press release, the agency explained it was facing understaffing. “DNR Recreation currently has just 60 field staff across the entire state; only one staff person per every 21.6 miles of trail, 50,000 acres, and 333,000 visitors to DNR-managed lands. Partnership with Washington Conservation Corps crews previously supported DNR with the equivalent of 70 additional field staffers. Those crews were not funded in the 2025 and 2026 legislative sessions,” it said.
In the face of these financial challenges, the DNR made the decision to shut down several campgrounds and limit access to others. “We don’t want to be reducing recreation services, but legislative budget cuts — specifically to recreation maintenance — have forced these decisions,” Commissioner of Public Lands Dave Upthegrove said. The following campgrounds are closed for a combined total of 20 sites:
- Anderson Lake
- Rock Lakes
- Island Camp
- Upper Clearwater
Other Closures
Five other campgrounds will experience partial closures, with either late openings or closures from fall 2026 to spring 2027. Two other campgrounds, 29 Pines and Ahtanum, are currently closed due to flood damage from 2025 and will require extensive repairs.
Even if visitors don’t plan on visiting these specific areas, DNR says they’ll still notice the impact. “Budget cuts and reductions in maintenance will still be felt across the entire state. Decreased funding for maintenance has a cascading effect — storm recovery will take longer, trailhead bathrooms will not be stocked, there will be more trash on trails, and sites will be less maintained and staffed due to a lack of resources,” the agency said.
Why It Matters
Obviously, anyone wishing to camp in these areas will be unable to do so. These campsites, which are free with the $45 Discover Pass, are a far more affordable, accessible alternative to hotels or privately run campgrounds.
Only time will tell the economic impact of these closures. Outdoor recreation contributed roughly $20.9 billion to the state’s gross domestic product in 2024. Tourism is the fourth-biggest industry in Washington after aerospace, tech, and forestry.
Washington’s state park system saw 40 million visitors in 2025. It’s also worth noting that it’s widely expected that North Cascades National Park will face closures and limited access this summer after experiencing extreme flooding last year.
The results of these cuts to Washington’s state land management can serve as a test case to better understand what may happen with cuts to national parks. For his 2027 budget, President Trump proposed slashing the budget of the National Park Service (NPS) by $736 million. This would come on the heels of large disruptions to the NPS in 2025, which included hiring freezes and mass firings estimated to be 20% of the agency’s workforce.
The NPS system is obviously far larger and more complex than an individual state’s DNR, but Washington can provide a small-scale, on-the-ground example of what happens when public lands face inadequate staff and a dearth of resources.
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