Yosemite National Park Superintendent Cicely Muldoon to Step Down

Yosemite National Park Superintendent Cicely Muldoon has announced she will retire at the end of February, leaving a leadership gap at one of the most visited national parks in the country.

Muldoon’s retirement marks the end of a distinguished 40-year career with the National Park Service, including five years at Yosemite and a decade leading Point Reyes National Seashore.

During her tenure, she managed the park through the COVID-19 pandemic, which led to record visitation and staffing shortages. To balance preservation and tourism, she introduced a day-use reservation system to control crowding—a program expected to become permanent this year.

“I am incredibly fortunate… to have worked with people so dedicated to public service and the NPS mission,” she wrote in a farewell email to staff.

Muldoon, the second woman to serve as Yosemite’s superintendent, has not yet been replaced. The next leader will inherit the ongoing challenge of balancing conservation with growing visitation to the park’s 750,000 acres of iconic wilderness.