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This story was updated with an additional section below entitled “An Update From YOSAR” on February 25 at 8:30am MT. 

Nate Vince, the suddenly famous Yosemite locksmith who lost his job as a result of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE)’s recent slew of layoffs, texted me while hanging off the side of El Capitan on Saturday afternoon: “Yeah, Buddy, we’re up here! The teamwork to get this done was unreal.”

I reached out to Vince as a friend of a friend from my own days working for the Yosemite Bear Team and as a white carded EMT during the 2011-2012 seasons. With many other seasons working for the Mountaineering School and High Sierra Camps—as well as dirtbagging and climbing with members of the SAR Site—I felt hit hard by the news of the cuts to  and other park staff. To get to the bottom of how DOGE’s actions were impacting my favorite community, I reached out to Vince and others to find out how they were reacting.

The Upside-Down Flag on Yosemite’s Horsetail Fall

On Saturday, February 22, Vince and a crew of six friends and ex-coworkers—all current or past National Park Service (NPS) employees—hauled a 30×50-foot American flag up El Capitan’s East Ledges and unfurled it down the headwall between the climbing route Zodiac and Horsetail Fall (also known, this time of year, as the ).

The flag was donated by a current NPS employee (and veteran), and the crew took care to respect it. Hauling and rigging the flag wasn’t easy. The wind was whipping up the face and causing the flag to behave like a giant sail. “None of us had ever climbed El Cap with a 50-foot flag before, so it was all new,” Vince told me once he was down. “In the interest of safety, we pulled it back up and spent a couple of hours on top, waiting for the wind to die down before trying again. It wouldn’t have been worth it if anyone got hurt.”

The flag-hauling climbers released the following statement to various news outlets on Saturday afternoon:

“The American flag is a symbol of unity, pride, and honor. The flag represents the ideals, values, history, and people of our nation, and we recognize and understand the importance of treating the flag with respect and dignity. The upside-down flag is used as a signal of dire distress in instances of extreme danger to life or property. 

The purpose of this exercise of free speech is to disrupt without violence and draw attention to the fact that public lands in the United States are under attack. The Department of the Interior issued a series of secretarial orders that position drilling and mining interests as the favored uses of America’s public lands and threaten to scrap existing land protections and conservation measures. Firing 1,000s of staff regardless of position or performance across the nation is the first step in destabilizing the protections in place for these great places.”

After a couple hours, Vince and his crew carefully raised the flag, folded it correctly, and packed it into their haul bags for the hike down. They could’ve left it up. It would’ve been tough for anyone else to retrieve it. But they’ve worked for the National Park Service, and visitor experience was on their minds. “We wanted to give people a chance to get their firefall pictures without the flag. It was a beautiful evening for it,” Vince explains.

How the DOGE Layoffs Hit Yosemite

If you haven’t heard the full story, Vince, aka Yosemite’s only locksmith, got fired on Valentine’s Day—exactly three weeks shy of completing his one-year probationary period. He was great at what he did, receiving numerous awards and glowing evaluations. “Then on Valentine’s Day, I got this generic email with my name pasted into it,” Vince says. “It said I didn’t fulfill the knowledge, skills, or abilities for my job. Now Yosemite has no locksmith.”

 

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You might not know it, but Yosemite has over 1,000 structures that use a lock-and-key system, including many historic buildings, archives, and housing. So by stating that they no longer need his position, the government is essentially saying they don’t need locked doors in the park.

While working as a seasonal mechanic during the last government shutdown, Vince witnessed what happened to Park structures when they were understaffed: “Historic structures got broken and damaged—and these are important places. They’re part of what makes America cool. And when they aren’t protected, people go to Joshua Tree and cut Joshua trees down, or they go to the Ahwahnee and steal hotel signs. And what’s worse? What happens if there’s a rescue situation and YOSAR can’t get into the SAR Cache? You can’t break that door down. The rescue ain’t happening, and lives are in peril.”

Of course, the layoffs aren’t only happening in Yosemite. Alex Wild—a former Yosemite wilderness ranger who climbed The Nose with Vince last fall—was dismissed from his job as an interpretive ranger and the only EMT at Devils Postpile National Monument. He got the email on February 15. “My immediate boss advocated for me, telling people, ‘Hey, don’t fire this guy; he’s our only EMT,’” Wild says. “But that’s how sloppy it all is. Maybe they didn’t mean to fire their only EMT, but they did.”

Devils Postpile averaged one or two rescues per week the previous season. “Just about every Saturday,” Wild says of their typical rescue cadence. “People get hurt here, but it’s nothing like Yosemite.”

In Yosemite, YOSAR handles 911 calls for high-angle injuries, water rescues, and just about any other issue that occurs off pavement. Highly trained permanent and seasonal rangers staff YOSAR. But a specialized group known as “SAR Siters” have been part of YOSAR since the sixties, when the Park Service realized that the surging popularity of rock climbing called for expert climbers to assist with high-angle recoveries.

SAR Siters get paid as “AD hires,” which basically means as needed. They get called out for emergencies and are paid by the hour. On February 14, YOSAR sent out an email to all returning SAR Siters announcing a hiring freeze. “We will not be able to hire emergency SAR personnel for the summer season,” the email stated.

In 2024, YOSAR responded to roughly 250 rescues—a typical incident volume that steadily rises year after year. SAR Siters take the lead in nearly every rescue. Not only is confidence on the sharp end of Yosemite’s most difficult routes a prerequisite for being a SAR Siter, but so is being an EMT, Swiftwater certified, highly skilled at rigging, and proficient in short hauling. SAR Siters must also know how to work with Yosemite rescue chopper 551. These are not activities that a recently hired seasonal ranger would just be able to pick up.

If DOGE believes that leaving our national parks unlocked, unprotected, and unsafe is the smartest way to balance our nation’s books, then perhaps the interns crunching the numbers need to go back to school.

Or maybe there’s . As of last year, national parks constituted less than .05% of the federal budget. And for seasonal rangers, only a tiny sliver of that is congressionally allocated. Climbing rangers, for instance, are funded by grants alone.

“People are making huge sacrifices to live this life,” former Yosemite climbing ranger Eric Lynch says. “It’s not like seasonal or AD hires have any ability to cheat the system. Rangers were repeatedly and consistently abused by the system as it was.”

What do the YOSAR cuts mean for climbers?

Without a full SAR team in Yosemite this year, the climbing community is already contemplating the impacts on the upcoming climbing season.

“In Yosemite, I think the biggest thing is to be prepared to help your fellow climbers,” Lynch says. “The likelihood of being out climbing and running into an issue that you then have to step in and assist with is going to increase substantially.”

“Expect to self-rescue,” Wild adds. “There is so much uncertainty about the SAR teams and personnel that climbers need to go into this assuming that an EMS response either won’t be there or will be severely delayed.”

There will still be rangers in Yosemite working for YOSAR. But the search and rescue team and its resources will be more limited. Two rangers can’t carry a tourist with a broken ankle down the Upper Falls trail, for instance. Let alone rig a short-haul mission off of Half Dome.

Will There Really Not Be Any SAR Siters this Season?

“No,” an anonymous source in Yosemite EMS tells me. “This community is too strong. People are committed to the team and providing that role to the Park. But it will be barebones.”

Right now, the Yosemite community is figuring out how to take care of people. It makes sense that the climbing community is figuring out how to keep climbers and tourists safe, even without government support, because that’s what a community does.

“It’s the community that exists in Yosemite that makes people want to work here,” Lynch says. He knows that visitors value the community of Yosemite, too—it’s part of the experience in the Valley. But he cautions that they will be impacted by the cuts to YOSAR and park staff: “It’s a trickle-down effect, and they’re going to feel it.”

As for Wild, he may pivot to guiding for the season. While he’s less concerned about his own professional prospects, he is quite worried about the absence of rangers in the park. “Someone needs to have that job,” he says. “It needs to exist … How do you get rid of so many of us without any real plan?”

I contacted the Trump administration via email to pose Wild’s very question and didn’t receive a response by the time of publication. I also phoned the public information office for Yosemite National Park. As I poked my way through the phone tree, the assistant to the superintendent happened to be one of the options. The phone rang until an automated voice picked up and said, “We’re sorry, this position is currently vacant. This voicemail box will not be monitored. So please do not leave a message.”

An Update from YOSAR

After publishing this article, I heard back from a longtime, respected Yosemite law enforcement ranger, who I had originally reached out to as a source. He works closely with YOSAR and Yosemite EMS—I knew him during my time in Yosemite—and he spoke with me anonymously.

This anonymous source wants the public to know that YOSAR is currently well-equipped with experienced permanent and seasonal law enforcement rangers, paramedics, climbing rangers, EMTs, and wilderness rangers. He strongly believes that Yosemite is still prepared to respond to search and rescue emergencies, even with the recent layoffs and AD hiring freeze. He also wanted to emphasize that the experience of YOSAR’s permanent law enforcement, wilderness, and EMS staff in rigging, high-angle rescues, helicopter rescues, and leadership is unmatched.

The SAR Siters are instrumental in rounding out the YOSAR team, but YOSAR is confident that they will step up to the challenge until they can welcome all SAR Siters back—hopefully, in time for the summer season.

What Can Climbers of Yosemite and Beyond Do Next?

If you’d like to weigh in with your insights or experiences at Yosemite, you can contact representative , who presides over California’s 5th Congressional District where Yosemite is located. You can also reach out to to advocate for public lands in your home state. Yosemite is far from the only park affected.

When visiting public lands this season—and until appropriate staffing levels at our public lands are restored—please tread even more lightly than usual. Pack out what you can and practice preventative search and rescue measures. And whether you’re climbing in Yosemite, Joshua Tree, the Black Canyon, Zion, or any other national park, be prepared to help others out, too.