Many of the trails that define trail running culture run across U.S. Forest Service land. The Pacific Crest Trail, Continental Divide Trail, Colorado Trail, Arizona Trail, and large parts of the Tahoe Rim Trail all cross national forests, and the Forest Service manages what it calls the single largest source of outdoor recreation opportunities in the United States. For trail runners, that makes the Forest Service enormously important: even if not every run happens on Forest Service land, many of the country’s most iconic backcountry routes, training grounds, and race landscapes do.

At the end of March, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced sweeping changes to the Forest Service, which it oversees. The headline was the headquarters move from Washington, D.C. to Salt Lake City, but the bigger story is a full restructuring: the agency is eliminating regional offices, shifting to a state-based model, consolidating technical functions, and centralizing research while closing many facilities.

For runners, this is not happening in isolation. It comes alongside USDA’s final rule on how it implements the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) when conducting environmental reviews of projects on Forest Service and other lands, the proposed rescission of the 25-year-old Roadless Rule, and a push to significantly expand timber production across national forests. Together, these moves suggest a Forest Service less focused on stewardship, recreation, science, and public participation—and one more focused on speed, shorter (and less robust) environmental review, and resource extraction.

The reorganization plan includes establishing 15 state offices that have one state director with a very small team.

What the Reorganization Means

USDA says the new structure will streamline decisions and move authority closer to the ground. But from the running community’s perspective, the risk is the loss of the recreation planners, engineers, permit specialists, NEPA staff, and fire recovery coordinators who help keep trails maintained, events permitted, and post-fire trail recovery moving. Trail access depends not only on land protections, but on having enough experienced staff to manage those landscapes well.

Why This Matters to Runners

For individual runners, this is about what happens on the trail. If the Forest Service loses staff while accelerating timber projects and narrowing environmental review, runners could see more roads, more machinery, more logging disturbance, more fragmented trails, and less of the quiet backcountry character that defines national forest running.

It also affects how usable trails are day to day. A trail can be “open” on paper but effectively lost if no one is available to clear downed trees, repair washouts, inspect bridges, or coordinate volunteers. And when environmental reviews become shorter and more discretionary, runners lose one of the few meaningful avenues for public input before landscape changes are approved.

Runners participating in the Oregon 200. Photo courtesy of Go Beyond Racing

Why This Matters to Race Directors

For race directors, the consequences are even more immediate. Events on Forest Service lands depend on timely permits, coordination across ranger districts, environmental review, and technical help from experienced staff. When those specialists disappear or are harder to reach, permits slow down, reroutes get harder, and uncertainty grows.

That affects more than race directors. It affects runners waiting to register, volunteers planning aid stations, families and crews traveling to events, and gateway towns that depend on increased business during race weekends. Less predictable permitting and weaker trail capacity can mean fewer events, more last-minute changes, and more strain on the communities that make trail racing possible.

A downed tree blocks a trail in national forest. Photo by Elke Reimer

The Bigger Story

The reorganization, the NEPA rewrite, the Roadless Rule rescission effort, and the timber production push all point in the same direction: this is not simply about efficiency. It is about whether the Forest Service is being remade in a way that sidelines recreation, conservation, science, and public participation in favor of faster industrial approvals and expanded resource extraction.

That does not mean every active management project is wrong. But it does mean the balance appears to be shifting away from the values that make national forests healthy, runnable, and enjoyable.

What RPL Is Doing

Runners for Public Lands has already opposed the reorganization plan, the USDA NEPA rewrite, and the proposed Roadless Rule rescission. Across those efforts, RPL has made the same point: public lands management must protect recreation access, preserve field expertise, retain meaningful public participation, and maintain the wild, healthy landscapes that runners and communities depend on.

The Trail Ahead

The Forest Service reorganization is not a one-off bureaucratic change. It is part of a broader effort to fundamentally change how national forests are managed and what values come first. For runners, that could mean more degraded trails, more industrial disturbance, and fewer chances to influence decisions. For race directors and host communities, it could mean slower permits and less certainty.

RPL will continue to push for a Forest Service still capable of stewardship, science, recreation management, and meaningful public engagement. Because if these changes continue on their current path, races and the trail running experience on national forest land will be diminished.

Featured image: The beautiful landscapes of the Inyo National Forest, one of California’s largest. Photo by Bryant Baker