February is one of the busiest times of the year at Yosemite National Park thanks to “firefall,” a natural phenomenon that causes a glowing ribbon of water to look like molten lava cascading down El Capitan’s Horsetail Fall.
Travelers come from around the world to witness the event at the granite monolith, famed for its nearly vertical walls, some booking entry tickets and reserving parking spots a year in advance.
But this year’s visitors witnessed more than firefall on February 22. They also saw an upside-down American flag, which Yosemite employees reportedly hung over the side of El Capitan to protest the recent downsizing that took place as part of the Trump administration’s cost-cutting initiatives.
Traditionally, hanging the American flag upside down symbolizes a distress call.
Gavin Carpenter, a maintenance mechanic with Yosemite, spoke to the San Francisco Chronicle on Saturday and said he supplied the flag and helped hang it.
“We’re bringing attention to what’s happening to the parks, which are every American’s properties. It’s super important we take care of them, and we’re losing people here, and it’s not sustainable if we want to keep the parks open.”
In 2023, Yosemite was the sixth busiest national park in the country, with 3.89 million visitors.
Located in California’s Sierra Nevada mountain range, the park is a habitat for the endangered California condor and home to giant sequoias, the largest trees in the world.
Park officials nationwide have raised concerns about how the abrupt federal firings will impact the National Park Service.
One of those affected workers, Iowa park ranger Brian Gibbs, said he found out about his recent termination when he was locked out of his email.
He wrote a public Facebook post about his feelings of being “absolutely heartbroken and completely devastated,” which has been shared more than 200,000 times.
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