Washington Trails
Association
Trails for everyone, forever
Washington Trails
AssociationTrails for everyone, forever
Climate change is already impacting hikers and campers in Washington. It’s time to act. By Loren Drummond
"Most people who love nature really hate climate impact talks,” jokes Jason Vogel.
That’s why, when Jason does talk about the climate, he doesn’t start with the hard news. Instead, the first thing he will tell you is to keep tapping into the joy and wonder of spending time in wild places.
Jason is a hiker, a backpacker, a mountain biker, a backcountry snowboarder and a mushroom forager based in Bellingham. On weekends, he teaches his kids to ski. In his professional life, he is the interim director of the Climate Impacts Group and co-director of the Northwest Climate Resilience Collaborative at the University of Washington. When you talk to him, he’s very clear that climate change has been shaping recreation and public lands across our region for years, but that we’re starting to feel the bigger impacts of that change.
For hikers in Washington, that means two things. One: As the landscape shifts under our feet, we need to build new skills and awareness about how we hike. Two: We must act. According to Jason and his colleagues, we still have plenty of sway to protect the places we love. The important thing is to do something — and to do it now.
On Dec. 17, 2012, rangers and Cama Beach State Park visitors watched the waters of a 12.9-foot king tide wash over the seawall. Water pushed into the boathouse and bathed the foundations of the iconic cabins along the beach. Twelve years later, during a major storm on Feb. 26, 2024, seawater bled into the septic, water and electrical systems.
When park staff evaluated their options, they were clear-eyed. Park staff pointed out that there have been seven 50-year storms in the last 20 years. By 2050, there’s a 50 percent chance most of the cabins would have their feet in the drink. Late last year, they decided not to reopen the beloved cabins in their current locations.
In March of 2024, Olympic National Park demolished seven cabins at Kalaloch Beach, after coastal erosion undercutting the bluff made them unsafe. The pressure and cost of climate change played a major role in both decisions.
According to Jason and his fellow researchers, coastal impacts are just one of the climate outcomes that we can expect to affect Pacific Northwest recreation.
We’ll see less snow and more winter rain. That spells longer, drier summers with bigger wildfire and smoke risk. The researchers say that heavy rain events are also expected to be more intense, and the resulting flooding, landslides and washouts are likely to make trail, road and campground access more difficult.
In May of 2023, after a massive landslide destroyed SR 504, a key access road to Johnston Ridge Observatory at Mount St. Helens, Gifford Pinchot National Forest said that “hot weather and associated rapid snowmelt in the days leading up the event” were a contributing factor. The latest estimate for hikers being able to access the popular area again is summer of 2027.
Sea change, extreme weather, landslides, glacial melt, drier summers, fire and flood. We’re used to thinking about these kinds of landscape changes in the future, as “what ifs.” But we are already dealing with the impacts of climate change, many of which don’t make the news.
Both Olympic and North Cascades national parks have said that trail and road washouts from flooding and landslides are a big concern in their climate change vulnerability assessments.
It’s 2025, this is our world, and it’s changing fast. So, what’s a hiker to do?
There are many reasons to keep putting one foot in front of the other on our trails. Spending time in the wild places we love generates the energy we need to care for the ecosystems and people who share those places with us.
We’re also going to have to pay closer attention. Seasonal markers are moving around; snow might come later or melt earlier. Smoke season is a reality we need to account for when planning trips. Experienced snowshoers and skiers need to re-learn their expectations of familiar avalanche terrain. (See this story from our spring magazine for tips for planning trips in unpredictable times.)
We can also put some of our trail time to work: volunteering for trail work, contributing to a people-powered science monitoring program or even becoming a search-and-rescue volunteer. Our combined time and energy adds up in a powerful way and knits together our community.
Joe Hall is one of the WTA staff who sends backcountry trail crews out to clear and restore trails in danger of falling off the map, and he makes sure those crews are equipped with something even more important than the right sleeping bag or saws.
“They need a set of skills to navigate unexpected situations in the field, and increasingly that includes knowing how to evaluate and react to heat spikes, heavy rains and wildfires. Our crews are working in rugged places like the Pasayten and Glacier Peak wilderness areas, places like Schneider Springs burn area near Naches, where entire trail networks have seen big, hot fires. They need to know how to travel and work safely in those landscapes,” Joe said.
In recent years, Washington Trails Association has amped up planning and created extra safety protocols for our crew leaders and professional trail crews, building a nimble approach to keep trail crews and volunteers safe.
“In old fire burn areas, sudden wind and rain storms have much higher consequences for hikers than in a healthy forest. Conditions can change quickly, and it’s important to know safe evacuation routes in case of a flood or landslide event,” said Erin McMillin, who helps plan backcountry work for WTA.
While hikers may not need the same level of preparation, they can take a page from the pros by deepening an understanding of weather, risk management and avalanche forecasts.
Climate scientists are clear: While we’re already experiencing climate change impacts on trails and in campgrounds, we still have a lot of power to influence just how bad things get. One piece of that puzzle is influencing policy makers to enact climate-friendly policies to protect the places we love.
Hikers will need to be a strong voice for more funding for trails and public lands. Researchers warn that as snowpack melts out earlier, there will be more boots on trail, even as wildfires and washouts choke off access to trails.
“Many people don’t think about infrastructure as part of the hiking experience, but it is,” said Andrea Imler, WTA’s advocacy director. “Roads, trails, parking lots — even backcountry bridges and toilets. They all support the incredible trail network connecting public lands in Washington. And all of those things require funding. One major washout, like at Mount St. Helens, can cut off an entire area to access. A giant wildfire destroys a trail, and brings down trees for a decade or more, requiring years of annual work to keep it open. And that doesn’t even account for the public lands staff who build and maintain all of that infrastructure.”
It is likely to take 3 years and millions of dollars to repair the damage done in a single day to SR 504 at Mount St. Helens. Shoring up key infrastructure makes sense in the long run. But the costs can add up, even for something as small as a trail.
In the late summer of 2021, the Schneider Springs Fire burned an area about half the size of nearby Mount Rainier National Park. That fall, Congress passed a law providing extra funding to rehabilitate national forests burned from 2019 to 2021. That gave the Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest resources to repair the trails impacted by the fire. They tapped WTA to help repair 75 miles of trails in 2024 and 2025.
In 2025, Congress has the opportunity to reauthorize the Great American Outdoors Act’s Legacy Restoration Fund, which has directed more than $149 million across the country to help reduce the maintenance backlog on national forest trails over the last 4 years.
“These are the kinds of essential funding opportunities that we need hikers to speak up for,” Andrea said. “They’re essential to protecting our iconic trails now and a decade from now.”
If we want the places we call home to be as livable as possible for all people and animals — if we want trail experiences full of ferns, fish and snow-fed wildflower meadows, then we need to keep hiking and we need to act. In big and small ways, starting right now.
