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| - In California's Yosemite National Park, almost a dozen staffers received termination notices on Feb. 14, 2025. Then, in late February, photographs spread widely claiming to show a protest from within the park. An image of an upside-down U.S. flag hanging off the side of the famous El Capitan peak in Yosemite, for instance, spread across Reddit and Instagram.
One post stated, "Brilliant protest. Yosemite National Park workers hung an upside-down American flag — traditionally a symbol of distress or a national threat — thousands of feet off the ground on the side of El Capitan."
(X user @Luckytran)
The above photograph is indeed authentic and shows a real protest carried out by Yosemite National Park employees. A
The original photographer, Tracy Barbutes, shot the image for the San Francisco Chronicle on Feb. 22, 2025 (archived). The caption read, "An upside-down American flag hangs from El Capitan near Yosemite National Park's Horsetail Fall on Saturday to protest the thousands of federal job cuts made by President Donald Trump's administration." Barbutes also photographed the moment at a distance, in an image also included in the Chronicle's story.
Barbutes shared the image on her Instagram story with the caption, "I created this image for the @sfchronicle and of course it occurred to me that we were all standing on indigenous land."
(Tracy Barbutres)
According to the Chronicle, the demonstrators consisted of Yosemite employees protesting the Trump administration's job cuts. Six climbers placed the flag there. Gavin Carpenter, a maintenance mechanic in the national park, 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."
The group also released a statement to the media:
The purpose of this exercise of free speech is to disrupt without violence and draw attention to the fact that public lands in the United States are under attack. The Department of the Interior issued a series of secretarial orders that position drilling and mining interests as the favored uses of America's public lands and threaten to scrap existing land protections and conservation measures. Firing 1,000s of staff regardless of position or performance across the nation is the first step in destabilizing the protections in place for these great places.
The flag was placed upside down before the famous "firefall" event that takes place on the cliffside of El Capitan. The annual event brought numerous visitors with their cameras hoping to see the moment when the evening light illuminated Horsetail Fall, making it appear like lava pouring over a cliff. As such, many people noticed the upside-down flag because they had arrived to witness the natural phenomenon.
Per Yosemite's live webcams, which showed various angles of the peak as of Feb. 24, 2025, the flag appeared to be taken down. According to the U.S. flag code, "The flag should never be displayed with the union down, except as a signal of dire distress in instances of extreme danger to life or property."
Park officials expressed concerns to the news media about the impacts cuts could have on the smooth functioning of national parks across the country.
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