National park passes go on sale despite 'aesthetic harm' of Trump pic

ESTES PARK, Colorado ‒ President Donald Trump's face now officially graces the front of national park entrance passes, a move being challenged in federal court by environmental advocates who say the new design subjects them to "recurring aesthetic harm."

Park rangers across the nation have begun selling the new "America the Beautiful" annual park passes featuring Trump and George Washington, instead of the typical landscape or animal images the plastic cards have borne since 2004. The new passes also pay homage to the nation's semisesquicentennial celebrations with an "America 250" logo on the bottom left.

Trump is the first sitting president to be featured on the parks passes since they were introduced.

National Park Service officials last fall announced the move to put Trump's image on the passes as part of an overall "America First" revamp that also saw park entrance fees raised for international tourists as of Jan. 1. National parks in 2024 hosted an estimated 332 million visitors.

The Interior Department did not respond to a request for comment on the new designs. Pass sales generated $119.4 million in revenue for federal fee sites in fiscal 2023, the latest year for which data is available.

Under the new pass system, American citizens and legal residents can buy an annual park pass for $80 by showing a passport or REAL ID-compliant driver's license, while foreigners must pay $250. Not all parks charge entry fees, and the passes are also valid at some other federal fee sites, including some run by the U.S. Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management.

The park service has also added a new free entrance day for American citizens and legal residents on Flag Day, which the park service specifically notes is also Trump's birthday.

International visitors will still have to pay entrance fees on those days, which also include President's Day, President Teddy Roosevelt's birthday, and Sept. 17, for Constitution Day. Under the new system, the park service abolished free days on Martin Luther King Jr. Day and Juneteenth, the federal holiday commemorating the day the last group of enslaved people learned they were free after the Union won the Civil War.

'Testament to how important national parks are to all Americans'

Park enthusiasts angry about the new designs have flooded the online store of Colorado artist Jenny McCarty to buy stickers she designed to cover the front of the pass, blocking the president's face.

Those stickers also potentially cover up security features on the front of the card, including a foil hologram of mountains and the phrase "annual pass" in microprinting, which were also present on the 2025 pass.

"Really, I didn't expect more than a handful of orders of these. And it just exploded. That's a testament to how important national parks are to all Americans, no matter what side of the aisle you're on," McCarty said.

She said she initially joked on her social media that she'd be offering little stickers of cute pikas − a mouse-like mountain mammal − to cover up the president's face, but designed larger stickers due to the outpouring of interest. She's now sold more than 7,000 of the stickers, she said. To avoid potentially voiding the security measures, she recommends people put the sticker on a clear plastic sleeve, then sliding the unadulterated card inside.

"It's pretty wild. Honestly, it's gone global at this point. We've gotten orders from all over the world," said McCarty, who lives in Boulder.

McCarty is donating proceeds to nonprofits that support national parks.

'Being subjected to a recurring aesthetic harm'

The Arizona-based Center for Biological Diversity has sued park service managers to halt the use of the new passes, arguing they are supposed to bear images from a winning photo competition, and that charging international tourists extra fees is illegal.

The center said the Trump administration has provided no justification for putting the president's image on the pass, which is legally supposed to only show non-controversial photos from federal lands.

Some critics have decried the decision to put the president's face on the passes given his administration's cuts to public lands funding nationally, including permanent scientific staff and seasonal workers at national parks.

"Portraying a sitting president for the first time in history in lieu of the winner of the photo contest is also 'controversial' and 'inappropriate' within the meaning of the contest rules," the center said in its court filing.

The center's attorneys said that people who want to buy the new pass "now face the Hobson’s choice, on one hand, of having to participate in unlawful partisan activity they disagree with and being subjected to a recurring aesthetic harm from buying and using an annual pass adorned with Trump's visage … or on the other hand, forgoing entirely the monetary and other benefits of buying a pass …"

The federal government has not yet responded to the lawsuit.

The new resident passes give credit to official White House photographer Daniel Torok for Trump's image, a change from when the annual passes highlighted the winner of a national nature photo competition. The photo that was supposed to be on the standard annual pass, an image of Glacier National Park, now instead decorates the non-resident pass, which costs $250.

At Rocky Mountain National Park, one of the nation's busiest, rangers have as of Jan. 1 installed signs alerting visitors that non-resident visitors without an annual pass must pay an extra $100 per person atop the standard $30 entrance fee, which is mirrored at some of the nation's other most popular parks, including Grand Canyon, Yosemite, Yellowstone and Acadia.

Some parks charge per person and some per vehicle. The annual pass typically covers all passengers in a noncommercial vehicle.