People are putting stickers all over Yosemite National Park's most popular trail

May 21-As Yosemite National Park swells with visitors ahead of a reservation-free summer season, vandalism has started to become a problem along one of the park's most popular hiking trails.

John DeGrazio, owner of YExplore Yosemite Adventures, has been guiding clients on hikes through the park for 20 years. But what he witnessed while leading a hike up the Mist Trail to Nevada Fall on Monday, he said, was unlike anything he'd ever seen: stickers plastered over previously untouched interpretive signs, locks attached to metal railings and even names and initials etched into rocks and trees.

"I spent 20 minutes peeling stickers off of a railing at the top of Nevada Fall, and then when I finished doing that, I get to another spot, and there it's even worse," DeGrazio said. "I've never, ever seen that before, and it was awful. It was atrocious."

Vandalism in the park is certainly not a new phenomenon, but DeGrazio feels that an influx of visitors this spring, coupled with a lack of park resources due to inadequate funding and staffing cuts, has worsened the issue. Much of the graffiti he saw along the Mist Trail appeared to have been there for several weeks, he said, meaning the Park Service's once-swift response to vandalism at Yosemite seems to have dwindled.

Adding to the issue is the removal of the park's reservation system, a change that was announced by the National Park Service in February. Conservationists and park enthusiasts have decried the decision, saying that forgoing reservations at highly trafficked parks like Yosemite could lead to overcrowding, damaged resources and a poor visitor experience.

"I'm seeing traffic much earlier in the morning, and I've seen it all spring," DeGrazio said. "I just feel like the summer is going to be absolutely ludicrous."

Yosemite Climbing Association President Ken Yager organizes Yosemite Facelift, the largest annual trash cleanup inside a national park. He said with the way things are looking at places like Nevada Fall, he's considering adding a project specific to sticker removal to the event.

Yager said he partially attributes the influx of vandalism in the park to what he calls "dirty bathroom syndrome."

"When a bathroom is clean, people take care of it, right? But once it's dirty, you drop something on the floor, you're going to leave it there, and it keeps getting messier," Yager said. "Same thing with the stickers and the locks. People see it, and then they go, 'Oh, I'll do that too.'"

He added that he doesn't expect park staff to attend to all the stickers and locks that are popping up, especially as it's working on a skeleton crew following over a year of workforce reductions.

"The Park Service is so overextended, and they don't have time for that," Yager said. "It's a thin crew, and all they can really do is keep operations open, keep the bathrooms clean and get trash out of the park - you know, from the trash cans."

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This story was originally published May 21, 2026 at 7:13 PM.