Daines seeks meeting with Park Service boss on crowds, morale

Montana Sen. Steve Daines is seeking a briefing from Park Service Director Charles Sams III on increases in visitation to national parks.

“With the number of visitors dramatically increasing over the last ten years at top destination park units, it is important that we are made aware of the impacts, both positive and negative, so the committee can better address the situation,” Daines, a Republican and Angus S. King, an independent from Maine wrote Sams on March 14.

Daines is a member of the Senate National Parks subcommittee.

In the letter, Daines noted that visitation to Yellowstone National Park in July eclipsed the 1 million mark for the first time ever.

Glacier National Park saw 1 million visitors in July of 2017.

Glacier now has a reservation system for traveling the Going-to-the-Sun Road to curb crowds at the peak times of day.

It started it last year, but it really didn’t curb overall visitation, as the park saw just over 3 million visitors, even with the system.

This year, the Park has expanded the reservation requirement to enter the Park’s North Fork at Polebridge.

Those reservations have been selling out in minutes, while Sun Road reservations typically take a few hours and even days.

In his letter, Daines asks Sams to provide an overview of trends, staffing, morale, housing and new policies at national parks.

He also wants him to give a report on what the Park Service is doing to get people to visit lesser visited parks.

“As international and domestic travel begins to ramp up after the devastating effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, we expect this trend to continue. We should continue to encourage visitation to all of our national park units, however, as visitation increases, it is important we know the scope of what the impact is,” Daines wrote.