{"id":1815744,"date":"2026-03-09T10:02:00","date_gmt":"2026-03-09T07:02:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1815744"},"modified":"2026-03-09T10:02:00","modified_gmt":"2026-03-09T07:02:00","slug":"millions-of-dollars-in-trail-maintenance-funding-have-been-cut-in-washington-state","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1815744","title":{"rendered":"Millions of dollars in trail maintenance funding have been cut in Washington state"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Photo: Vivika Stamolis.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The singletrack mountain bike trails in Washington state have long been renowned as some of the highest quality and best-maintained in the country. This high regard is due in large part to the exhaustive work by the Evergreen Mountain Bike Alliance<\/a> and Whatcom Mountain Bike Coalition<\/a>. Much of Evergreen\u2019s maintenance work is paid for by contracts with local land management agencies (more info here<\/a>). One of the major agencies Evergreen partners with is the Washington Department of Natural Resources (DNR), and several of the state\u2019s most popular trails \u2014 like Tiger Mountain<\/a> and Raging River<\/a> \u2014 are located on DNR land.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, the DNR, Department of Fish & Wildlife, and State Parks have had $7 million cut from their funding in 2025. Of that $7 million, $3 million \u2014 $1 million per agency, a 20% funding cut \u2014 was eliminated from their operations and management budget, which goes to trail and facility maintenance.<\/p>\n

And more cuts could be on the way in 2026. According to a press release issued jointly by all three agencies, current budget proposals could cut funding by almost $3 million more per year, with the DNR specifically losing an additional $750,000.<\/p>\n

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The DNR\u2019s \u201crecreation program has been operating at a deficit for at least five years, according to Courtney James, a communications manager with the agency,\u201d King 5 reports<\/a>. And with these cuts, it\u2019s only going to get worse.<\/p>\n

The DNR has warned that facility closures are imminent, but trail closures are unlikely<\/strong><\/h2>\n

In a press release, the DNR said that continued funding cuts would likely lead to the closure of campgrounds and recreation sites because they simply won\u2019t be able to maintain them. The announcement has made waves across the state, causing concern among local residents who are passionate about outdoor recreation.\u00a0<\/p>\n

However, when I spoke with Jesse Cunningham, the Advocacy Lead for Evergreen, he made it clear that closures, if they do happen, will primarily impact campgrounds \u2014 facilities with gates that can be closed easily. \u201cThere\u2019s no real way of gating those [trails] and closing them,\u201d said Cunningham. \u201cAnd DNR staff have told us that they\u2019re not really interested in necessarily closing trails. They\u2019re just reducing services to areas where it\u2019s easy for them, like a campground.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Raging River. Photo: Sean Sweeney
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Budget cuts are making it impossible to adequately maintain trails<\/strong><\/h2>\n

While trails might not be fully closed, it\u2019s likely that riders could experience a degraded trail experience in the future due to this drastic reduction in maintenance funding. Even though the DNR was operating at a deficit for years, the cuts in 2025 turned the situation into a crisis. These cuts eliminated the funding these agencies used to hire the Washington Conservation Corps young adult crews, which \u201caccounted for nearly half of the total field capacity available to DNR for trail and campground maintenance,\u201d according to the Washington DNR.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt current staffing levels, DNR Recreation has 60 field staff across the state; meaning there is only one staff person per every 21.6 miles of trail, 50,000 acres, or 333,000 visitors to DNR-managed lands,\u201d the DNR continues. \u201cFurther cuts will continue to be detrimental to the program and recreation access across Washington.\u201d<\/p>\n

Two of the most popular trail systems in the state, Tiger Mountain and Raging River, could be severely impacted by these funding cuts. These trails see hundreds of riders per day, and to keep them in tip-top shape, Evergreen employs professionals to handle maintenance with funds from a DNR maintenance contract. Due to these cuts, \u201c[the DNR\u2019s] ability to contract with us to do maintenance work is reduced,\u201d said Cunningham. \u201cThey\u2019re trying to find a way to still support that. But it\u2019s not the path that it was; it may be less money, and it may at some point not exist, but they\u2019re really trying hard to because those areas are so well used.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Cunningham went on to clarify that even if Evergreen can secure a maintenance contract, they definitely won\u2019t be bringing in as much funding. \u201cWe\u2019re going to try to provide as much service as we can, but there\u2019s certain things that we\u2019re going to have to cut back on, because we just don\u2019t have the resources. So we don\u2019t know what that exactly looks like yet either.\u201d<\/p>\n

While Evergreen will try to galvanize volunteers to help with maintenance, even before these cuts, they already relied on volunteer labor to keep up with trail maintenance. There\u2019s only so much volunteers can accomplish, and Evergreen doesn\u2019t expect volunteer labor to pick up all the slack.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe burden of that [maintenance] falls on us as an organization,\u201d said Cunningham. \u201cIt stresses our financial resources more to have to pick up the slack there.\u201d<\/p>\n

While Cunningham wasn\u2019t sure exactly how much maintenance would slip, the DNR communicated that the lack of maintenance will result in \u201cunsafe trail conditions, including storm damage and illegal trash dumping [which] will not be addressed due to staff capacity.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Bathrooms: the unsexy part of trail access<\/strong><\/h2>\n

The Washington state agencies warned that these funding cuts will result in \u201cunsafe or unsanitary conditions at many shared natural spaces.\u201d The unsanitary conditions are largely due to overused and undermaintained bathrooms.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve all probably used a trailhead pit toilet that\u2019s been absolutely filthy with every type of bodily fluid and excrement imaginable. Pit toilet maintenance across the nation has gotten so bad that I almost always bring my own roll of toilet paper, expecting the bathrooms to be totally cleaned out.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It\u2019s no different in Washington, and the bathrooms at popular trails like Raging River \u201care often in bad shape,\u201d according to Cunningham. \u201cThat\u2019s just a reflection of [the fact that] they get so much use, and there\u2019s only so much maintenance that happens there, and they get used and abused.\u201d Cunningham clarified that it\u2019s not just mountain bikers using the bathrooms, but that even under the current budget, the bathrooms have been atrocious. With even less funding, \u201cunsanitary conditions\u201d might not begin to cover it.<\/p>\n

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Anecdotally, I\u2019ve found that recent funding cuts to federal agencies<\/a> have led to some bathrooms simply being closed at BLM and Forest Service trailheads and other sites. This only exacerbates the issue, forcing users to find alternatives and rarely following Leave No Trace principles.\u00a0<\/p>\n

All three of these Washington agencies are urging the state government to fund their maintenance needs, and while Cunningham agrees, in our conversation, he was clear that systemic issues are causing these problems. In 2025, the state cut funding across numerous agencies and initiatives \u2014 trail maintenance was not singled out. Washington state, one of nine U.S. states that don\u2019t have an income tax, currently struggles to raise revenue to fund these services. Analyzing this nuanced issue is beyond the scope of this article, but it\u2019s clear that there\u2019s no easy answer.<\/p>\n

So what can riders do? \u201cI think it\u2019s good for legislative representatives to hear from their constituents about what\u2019s important,\u201d said Cunningham. \u201cSo even if they\u2019re not weighing in on a specific bill or piece of legislation, I think it\u2019s still worthwhile, if you care about stuff like this, just to be like, \u2018Hey, I care about funding for these agencies that support recreation.\u2019\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Washington<\/a><\/div>\n
Galbraith Mountain adds 5 new trails and 2 major rebuilds in 2025, with 20 more miles planned<\/a><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\"A<\/a><\/p>\n
Washington<\/a><\/div>\n
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Washington<\/a><\/div>\n
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Two<\/a><\/p>\n
Wyoming<\/a><\/div>\n
With federal funding drying up, tax-averse Wyoming looks to bike fees to pay for new MTB trails<\/a><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
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Photo: Vivika Stamolis. The singletrack mountain bike trails in Washington state have long been renowned as some of the highest quality and best-maintained in the country. This high regard is due in large part to the exhaustive work by the Evergreen Mountain Bike Alliance and Whatcom Mountain Bike Coalition. Much of Evergreen\u2019s maintenance work is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[226,274],"class_list":["post-1815744","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-crawlmanager","tag-singletracks-com"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1815744","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1815744"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1815744\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1815744"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1815744"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1815744"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}