{"id":7208,"date":"2025-02-26T04:36:51","date_gmt":"2025-02-26T04:36:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news-vm.com\/?p=7208"},"modified":"2025-02-26T04:36:51","modified_gmt":"2025-02-26T04:36:51","slug":"why-an-upside-down-american-flag-was-hung-in-yosemite-national-park","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news-vm.com\/?p=7208","title":{"rendered":"Why an upside-down American flag was hung in Yosemite National Park"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"paragraph inline-placeholder vossi-paragraph\" data-uri=\"cms.cnn.com\/_components\/paragraph\/instances\/cm7imyqee00lf2cqj3yna3ye3@published\" data-editable=\"text\" data-component-name=\"paragraph\" data-article-gutter=\"true\" data-analytics-observe=\"on\">February is one of the busiest times of the year at Yosemite National Park thanks to \u201cfirefall,\u201d a natural phenomenon that causes a glowing ribbon of water to look like molten lava cascading down El Capitan\u2019s Horsetail Fall.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph inline-placeholder vossi-paragraph\" data-uri=\"cms.cnn.com\/_components\/paragraph\/instances\/cm7imyx2u00023b6mjc9nqla8@published\" data-editable=\"text\" data-component-name=\"paragraph\" data-article-gutter=\"true\" data-analytics-observe=\"on\">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.<\/p>\n<div class=\"ad-slot-dynamic ad-slot-dynamic--3\" data-uri=\"cms.cnn.com\/_components\/ad-slot-dynamic\/instances\/sharethrough-travel-style@published\" data-placement=\"{&quot;mobile&quot;:{&quot;position&quot;:4},&quot;desktop&quot;:{&quot;position&quot;:2}}\" data-unselectable=\"true\">\n<div class=\"ad-slot\" data-uri=\"cms.cnn.com\/_components\/ad-slot\/instances\/cnn-v1@published\" data-path=\"end\/ad-slot-dynamic[0]\/items\" data-desktop-slot-id=\"ad_nat_btf_01\" data-mobile-slot-id=\"ad_nat_btf_01\" data-unselectable=\"true\">\n<div class=\"ad-slot__feedback ad-feedback-link-container\">\n<div class=\"ad-slot__ad-label\"><span style=\"font-family: var(--global-body-font-family);\">But this year\u2019s 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\u2019s cost-cutting initiatives.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"paragraph inline-placeholder vossi-paragraph\" data-uri=\"cms.cnn.com\/_components\/paragraph\/instances\/cm7imyx2u00073b6m22i6k488@published\" data-editable=\"text\" data-component-name=\"paragraph\" data-article-gutter=\"true\" data-analytics-observe=\"off\">Traditionally, hanging the American flag upside down symbolizes a distress call.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph inline-placeholder vossi-paragraph\" data-uri=\"cms.cnn.com\/_components\/paragraph\/instances\/cm7imyx2u00083b6m53en456m@published\" data-editable=\"text\" data-component-name=\"paragraph\" data-article-gutter=\"true\" data-analytics-observe=\"off\">Gavin Carpenter, a maintenance mechanic with Yosemite, spoke to the\u00a0San Francisco Chronicle\u00a0on Saturday and said he supplied the flag and helped hang it.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph inline-placeholder vossi-paragraph\" data-uri=\"cms.cnn.com\/_components\/paragraph\/instances\/cm7imyx2u00093b6mawi7ihsp@published\" data-editable=\"text\" data-component-name=\"paragraph\" data-article-gutter=\"true\" data-analytics-observe=\"off\">\u201cWe\u2019re bringing attention to what\u2019s happening to the parks, which are every American\u2019s properties. It\u2019s super important we take care of them, and we\u2019re losing people here, and it\u2019s not sustainable if we want to keep the parks open.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph inline-placeholder vossi-paragraph\" data-uri=\"cms.cnn.com\/_components\/paragraph\/instances\/cm7imyx2u000a3b6melq292w6@published\" data-editable=\"text\" data-component-name=\"paragraph\" data-article-gutter=\"true\" data-analytics-observe=\"on\">In 2023, Yosemite was the\u00a0sixth busiest national park\u00a0in the country, with 3.89 million visitors.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph inline-placeholder vossi-paragraph\" data-uri=\"cms.cnn.com\/_components\/paragraph\/instances\/cm7imyx2u000b3b6mecyls1qs@published\" data-editable=\"text\" data-component-name=\"paragraph\" data-article-gutter=\"true\" data-analytics-observe=\"on\">Located in California\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph inline-placeholder vossi-paragraph\" data-uri=\"cms.cnn.com\/_components\/paragraph\/instances\/cm7imyx2u00043b6m8uqnd9b1@published\" data-editable=\"text\" data-component-name=\"paragraph\" data-article-gutter=\"true\" data-analytics-observe=\"off\">Park officials nationwide have raised\u00a0concerns about how the abrupt federal firings\u00a0will impact the National Park Service.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph inline-placeholder vossi-paragraph\" data-uri=\"cms.cnn.com\/_components\/paragraph\/instances\/cm7imyx2u00053b6m4x7gftbs@published\" data-editable=\"text\" data-component-name=\"paragraph\" data-article-gutter=\"true\" data-analytics-observe=\"off\">One of those affected workers, Iowa\u00a0park ranger Brian Gibbs, said he found out about his recent termination when he was locked out of his email.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph inline-placeholder vossi-paragraph\" data-uri=\"cms.cnn.com\/_components\/paragraph\/instances\/cm7imyx2u00063b6mdq5wer77@published\" data-editable=\"text\" data-component-name=\"paragraph\" data-article-gutter=\"true\" data-analytics-observe=\"off\">He wrote a public Facebook post about his feelings of being \u201cabsolutely heartbroken and completely devastated,\u201d which has been shared more than 200,000 times.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>February is one of the busiest times of the year at Yosemite National Park thanks to \u201cfirefall,\u201d a natural phenomenon that causes a glowing ribbon of water to look like molten lava cascading down El Capitan\u2019s Horsetail Fall. Travelers come from around the world to witness the event at the granite monolith, famed for its&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7209,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_kad_post_transparent":"default","_kad_post_title":"default","_kad_post_layout":"default","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"default","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"default","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7208","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.0 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Why an upside-down American flag was hung in Yosemite National Park - VM News<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/news-vm.com\/?p=7208\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Why an upside-down American flag was hung in Yosemite National Park - VM News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"February is one of the busiest times of the year at Yosemite National Park thanks to \u201cfirefall,\u201d a natural phenomenon that causes a glowing ribbon of water to look like molten lava cascading down El Capitan\u2019s Horsetail Fall. 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