Volunteers struggle to maintain the Enchantments, hauling out 12 pounds of toilet paper in one day as federal cuts strain resources.
CHELAN COUNTY, Wash. — Behind the postcard views of the Enchantments in the North Cascades lies a crisis.
Trash, human waste, graffiti, and crowds are threatening the fragile alpine environment. Volunteers say years of federal staffing cuts have left this wilderness on the brink.
“There’s just human waste everywhere,” said Matt Lyons with the nonprofit TREAD. Lyons said there have been problems there for a while, but this is the worst he’s ever seen.
“A lot of graffiti, a lot of trash, a lot of problems happening in the Enchantments this year, “Troy Campbell, who heads up the Leavenworth Chamber of Commerce, said.
Sarah Shaffer of Wenatchee Outdoors said the situation seems to be getting worse.
“There’s poop just on top of rocks with toilet paper on top of rocks. It’s just a really crappy situation,” she said. ““My daughter and I actually packed out 12 pounds of just toilet paper.”
Trash mars the Enchantments in North Cascades
The 4.5-mile trail to Colchuck Lake is one of the most popular hikes in the state, attracting up to 2,000 hikers a day in peak season. But the resources to protect it are nearly gone.
Where there were once 11 U.S. Forest Service rangers in the region, there is now only one. That single ranger is responsible for nearly 900 miles of trail.
“She’s out here by herself hauling toilets that can weigh 300 pounds when they’re full,” Lyons said. “I don’t know how she does it. She’s a hero.”
Earlier this year, the Trump administration slashed Forest Service staffing nationwide, insisting hikers wouldn’t notice the cuts. But in the Enchantments, the impact is impossible to ignore.
Back in April, KING 5 emailed the U.S. Forest Service to ask what those cuts would mean for Washington trails. At the time, the agency downplayed concerns, responding in an email:
“We continue to evaluate our needs, resources, and personnel, within allocated budgets, to carry out our mission. The Forest Service remains committed to ensuring public health and safety while balancing access to recreation areas.
• Recreation services and public access are vital to local economies. It is our intent to maintain access to recreation opportunities to the greatest degree possible.
• Protecting the people and communities we serve, as well as the infrastructure, businesses and resources they depend on to grow and thrive, remains a top priority for the USDA and the Forest Service. We are incredibly proud of our firefighters, and we will ensure they have the training, tools, and resources they need to work alongside our state and local partners, as well as private landowners, to continue the work to protect lives and livelihoods.
• The Forest Service continues active management activities, including hazardous fuels reduction projects and prescribed fires, and are being conducted under the agency’s available funding authorities, including annual appropriations.”
But months later, volunteers and local leaders say the agency’s assurances don’t match the reality on the ground.
With little official presence, volunteers are doing what they can. Wenatchee Outdoors logged 57 hours of cleanup in July. TREAD has contributed 75 hours this summer. The Leavenworth Recreation Ambassador Program averages 288 hours each month.
But even with all that effort, the problems are growing. Waste vaults at campsites overflow. Graffiti mars granite walls. On Aasgard Pass, the rugged climb to the core of the Enchantments, volunteers are cleaning graffiti off granite.
“We went caveman and just beat it with other rocks,” Vernon Nelson, with Chelan County Mountain Rescue, said.
And while volunteers can clean, they can’t enforce. That falls on the Chelan County Sheriff’s Office.
Sheriff Mike Morrison said his deputies are stretched thin. He has two deputies assigned to the area. This year alone, there have been 29 rescues in the Enchantments which Morrison said is much higher than previous years. Many rescues involve hikers lured by Instagram or TikTok posts, showing off turquoise lakes and dramatic peaks without warning of the grueling climbs required to reach them.
“They’re showing up in pajama bottoms, Birkenstocks, sweatpants,” Morrison said. “Individuals are clearly not in the kind of shape you should be to go up there.”
Visitors travel from across the country, and even overseas, after seeing viral videos. Some arrive unprepared, without water, food, or the physical conditioning needed for the hike.
“I would call them weak-minded individuals that go up and just don’t have the capacity to push themselves so they get tired. They are, in a sense, pushing the easy button expecting the sheriff’s office or search and rescue to rescue them. It’s happened numerous times,” Morrison said.
Campbell, with the Chamber of Commerce, warned the dangers of what’s happening go beyond the rescues.
“The entire Enchantments burning down and maybe taking thousands of acres around it, including Leavenworth, with it is one of the things that keeps me up at night,” he said.
Even the wildlife isn’t immune. KING 5 spotted a chipmunk gnawing on toilet paper. And Shaffer, of Wenatchee Outdoors, worries about fecal matter impacting the environment.
“I’m worried about the fecal matter leaching into Colchuck Lake and to other lakes in the area, which can then in turn affect the city of Leavenworth, because they get their water supply…indirectly from Colchuck Lake,” she said.
Morrison said he’s in contact with the Forest Service, hoping to find a solution soon. Volunteers said some possible solutions include shuttle buses or requiring day use permits. Right now, permits are only required for overnight camping.
Morrison said if things don’t improve, he’s ready to shut down access to the Forest Service road that leads to the trailhead. Closing that gate would stop vehicle access, forcing hikers to walk an extra 3.5 miles each way turning the 9-mile roundtrip hike to the lake into 16.
“It’s not much to ask that if I shut the gate and you have to hike 7 miles more total round trip. I don’t think that’s much to ask,” Morrison said. “You should be in the kind of condition to be able to take that challenge on.”
Some, like Shaffer, believe a temporary closure may be necessary to protect the wilderness.
“For me, I’m like, let’s just shut it down for a while if that’s what we have to do,” she said.
Others, like Nelson, with Chelan County Mountain Rescue, feared it would make the area harder to access and enjoy.
For now, the gate remains open. But volunteers and locals alike said without more action, the Enchantments’ natural beauty could be permanently scarred.
“If nothing changes,” Shaffer warned, “we will lose the natural beauty and wonderment of the Enchantments.”
