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Off-Grid, On Edge: Navigating the Hiring Freeze from the Te Araroa
I’ll try to make this post as objective as possible. Please excuse any bitterness or angst that may leak through.
While on trail, I found myself in the unique position of being affected by the federal hiring freeze. I apologize for the lack of trail updates, but after President Trump’s inauguration, my focus shifted from hiking to potentially losing my job.
As a seasonal park ranger, my employment is dependent on the annual hiring cycle. I work six months a year and get rehired each season. This hiring freeze resulted in mass layoffs across federal departments, including the National Park Service.
I expected some logistical hurdles while hiking: checking emails, making the occasional long-distance call to my boss, even flying back to the U.S. for a drug test. But I did not expect to fear for my job. I was one of the lucky ones, a public safety exemption allowed me to return to work this spring. Many of my friends and former colleagues were not so fortunate. Some had their job offers rescinded, others had their positions pulled out from under them. A few had just earned well-deserved promotions, which we celebrated last fall, only to be fired on Valentine’s Day under the false pretense of being “underqualified” because they had been in their roles for less than a year.
The first hint of trouble came on January 22nd: a Garmin inReach message from a former coworker that simply read, “We’re affected by the hiring freeze.” I remember thinking What hiring freeze? I’d practically been living under a rock for weeks. From there, things spiraled. Rumors spread through the seasonal community—possible exemptions, possible layoffs, entire job titles disappearing. Who was safe? Who was unemployed? Who was losing their housing? Every few days, I’d receive another Garmin message with updates on hiring rumors and political changes while I was off-grid. The last thing I wanted was to lose my dream job because I was on a thru-hike and missed an important deadline.
I wanted to quit the trail. My spirit crashed. Everyone I knew in public lands was frustrated beyond belief. I ended up skipping a section after Arthur’s Pass Village. I spent a night in Christchurch with my best hiking buddy, Tim, before parting ways—he returned to the trail, and I skipped ahead to Methven. I wanted to make sure I had service every few days, just in case. The stress of my employment situation was too much to ignore.
During rare moments of peace, I appreciated how far away I was from everything—no service, few obligations. But on the other side of that was the gnawing uncertainty of what awaited me in town: a job offer, or an “I regret to inform you…”
I love my job. I love speaking with hikers on PSAR (Preventative Search and Rescue) hikes, being there for people in times of need. I even enjoy the relatively boring aspects; working with data, coordinating volunteers, making things make sense. I’ve told people on trail that I have 100% job satisfaction, yet those same people have seen me stressed to the verge of tears over the uncertainty I’ve faced for the past six weeks.
Some days, I daydreamed about a different path. A different country. A career where I could move and work freely, without being at the mercy of politics, but still have the things I cherish about being a park ranger. While in Lake Hawea, I even drafted a contingency plan: a working holiday visa application for Australia. If things truly fell apart, I was going to immigrate and be a ranger somewhere else.
As an American overseas, political affairs are the first thing people ask you about. While hitchhiking, if my driver was over 40, Trump came up almost immediately after exchanging pleasantries. Hikers are more removed from the news, but even then, the same jokes and questions cycle through. In my experience, Americans on the Te Araroa don’t talk about politics unless prompted by a non-American. We’re tired. We came here to escape the constant noise blasting from news outlets and social media. I’m even sick of my own voice explaining the hiring freeze over and over again. I’m tired of answering my family’s questions about whether I’ve heard back from the Grand Canyon yet.
Finally, I have an answer besides “I don’t know.”
After weeks of trying to find a bright side in all this nonsense, I’m simply grateful to be invited back. Please don’t take your job for granted. And if you see a park ranger, thank them. We’re going through a rough time.
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Comments 4
Thank you for writing from New Zealand!! It is a beautiful part of the world that I won’t be able to visit.
Your NPS job is very important to you and it sounds like you are committed to doing it well! Please understand DOGE is not about eliminating YOUR job, it is about eliminating waste, fraud and abuse of financial mismanagement across ALL federal government departments.
As a taxpayer, I would rather pay YOU to educate NPS visitors than pay someone in the Middle East to produce Sesame Street in Arabic!!
In my younger days I worked at a county park and even then I saw illogical management decisions carried out solely on the basis of “we have to spend the budget money or we get less next year.”
I know your life and plans have been upset right now. Please think long-game (30-40 years) and realize what is happening now in the federal government with DOGE affects every paycheck (regardless of employer) you receive from this day forward if taxes collected to pay for federal government waste and fraud declines. At some point that WILL become important to you.
You are experiencing what many in the private sector experience: a friend just lost her job due to policy changes at the FDA negatively affecting certain products the company produced. This is called life, and “freedom “ (to earn a living, hold diverse viewpoints, raise kids, etc) is being lost with every penny the federal government spends and/or every policy decision/law changed or created.
Enjoy life, but don’t settle for the lies being told. Truth can be found if you open your heart to find it!!
National Park and National Forest Service employees – rangers, SAR staff, janitorial staff, wildfire prevention staff, etc- are not fraud, waste, or abuse.
Grace, I’m so sorry. I know how hard it is because I work for a Fed agency. the USGS. Ive been collecting data and doing research with them for over 20 years. There is no fraud and very little waste. Much like NPS I’m sure, we work very hard as public servants and it is so difficult and frustrating to be berated by doge. I know several hard working colleagues who were let go, very sad and frustrating. Last week doge decreased our credit card limit to $1 so now we cant purchase field equipment such as batteries to keep our stream gages going. Please hang in there, I hope the freeze ends soon because your work is so important.
sure thing gail, sesame street in arabic. real classy. it couldnt possibly be an incredibly complex web of dependencies that lead to oil, which leads to vehicles, which leads to… everything. the parks services are anything but a waste. our breadth of landscapes and the efforts made to protect and preserve are one of the last things remaining that set us apart, and its thanks to folks like gail. try showing some gratitutude for her work and sharing here, giving you something to read, instead of using it as an excuse to get divisive.