Washington's National Forests To Open In Late May

WASHINGTON — On Friday, May 1, Gov. Jay Inslee extended Washington state's stay-at-home order through the end of the month, but with one major change: outdoor recreational areas like golf courses and parks could begin reopening to the public.

Tuesday over 100 parks across Washington reopened, and now the state's national parks and forests are following suit. The USDA Forest Service announced Wednesday that they were working on a "comprehensive review" of all the state's national forests with the goal of reopening all forest trailheads and recreational areas by the end of May.

Most of the Forest Service roads and trails are already open, and hunting and fishing are allowed once again on undeveloped Forest Service land.

The service says they intend to get Washington's National Parks up and running as quickly as possible, but they can't set a hard time frame just yet. They say they'll first need to evaluate each park and the amount of work it will take before it can be safely opened to the public.

"Many of these sites have been closed all winter," said Glenn Casamass, regional forester with the USDA Forest Service. "There is pre-work we need to perform before we can open them."

There has been some concern that reopening parks right now will cause new infections of the coronavirus. As the Washington Post reports, a Park Service internal memo issued late last month estimated that, if parks were to reopen immediately, 4 percent of the park's employees would catch the coronavirus and require hospitalization at some point. Another 40 percent would need to be isolated after coming into contact with the virus.

The Park Service says those estimates are outdated and represented a worst case scenario. Officials say they are doing everything they can to make the reopenings as safe as possible.

"We want to take deliberate actions which consider community impacts and the safety of our employees and volunteers before we make the decision to reopen each location," Casamassa said.

When the national parks do reopen, visitors will still have to make due without certain amenities. Visitor centers and restrooms will remain closed, and trash collection will be cancelled, meaning visitors will have to pack-in and pack-out all of their trash and supplies.

Washington's national parks will be opening in phases when each park is cleared for the public. The Forest Service has not issued a time-frame for any reopenings other than that they will come in late May. They urge anyone curious about what is and isn't available to visit their website and search for individual parks here.