Zinke asks Park Service director to move back reservation requirement in Glacier to 1 p.m.

Montana Congressman Ryan Zinke on Wednesday asked the Park Service to back up the non-reservation entry to Glacier National Park to 1 p.m.

This season Glacier is again requiring visitors who enter the park at most entrances to have a reservation from 6 a.m. to 3 p.m. through the summer months.

Last year visitors needed a reservation between 6 a.m. and 4 p.m. to enter the Going-to-the-Sun Road — the Park Service backed up the requirement an hour this year.

“…I appreciate it went to 3 o’clock …if you would look sir at maybe moving it to 1 … at least it gives an opportunity for people who’ve got kids to run to the park, do the hike and come back before it gets dark,” Zinke asked Park Service Director Charles F. “Chuck” Sams III during a House Appropriations Committee meeting.

Zinke reiterated his previous concerns that locals were being squeezed out of the park, and that they weren’t consulted when Glacier expanded the reservation system this year to include the Many Glacier and Two Medicine entrances.

Zinke also told Sam the Park Service needs to improve its transportation.

“We’ve got to figure out a transportation system inside the park,” he said.

“I agree 100%,” Sam said, adding that the Park Service has “the best social scientists looking at how we can better time those entries.”

But Sams didn’t get much time during the hearing to expound on that, or possible solutions, because Zinke went onto talk to other Department of Interior officials.

Zinke has previously said the Park Service should do away with the reservation system for Glacier entirely and replace it with a shuttle system — perhaps using electric vehicles — that would use real time visitor use data, so, for example, if a trail was over capacity, the shuttle wouldn’t stop there.

Glacier already has a shuttle system in place and it will run this year, but it covers just the Sun Road corridor, not the outlying eastern entrances of Many Glacier and Two Medicine.

Park spokeswoman Gina Kerzman noted that folks can use the shuttle system at St. Mary to access the Park this summer without a reservation. The checkpoint for vehicle reservations is at Rising Sun, so a person without a reservation can grab a shuttle at the St. Mary Visitor Center and get a ride up the road. During peak demand, however, parking can be an issue, like it is in all of Glacier during July and August.

Glacier has hired a woman with a doctorate in the field — a visitor use management program manager — who is analyzing the data gathered from previous seasons and will continue to do so this season Kerzman said Thursday.

As far as moving up the time for entering the park without a reservation, Kerzman said any6thing was possible, but “right now that’s the pilot we plan to move forward with. That’s what visitors are expecting.”

As far as Montanans go, approximately 53% of advance May and June reservations and 33% of July reservations were obtained by Montanans, making Montana the state with the highest percentage of reservations booked for both releases, Glacier officials have said previously.

But advanced reservations, available online through Recreation.gov, have gone very quickly, selling out in a matter of minutes.

That has brought the ire of Zinke.

The reservations are good for three days travel on the Going-to-the-Sun Road and one-day for Two Medicine, Many Glacier and the North Fork (Polebridge) entrance to the Park.

Reservations are required from Memorial Day weekend for the Sun Road until the weekend after Labor Day. Beyond that, reservations aren’t required for any entrance.

The next round of advanced reservations for August will be released April 1. The September advanced reservations begin May 1.

About half the available reservations are released in advance and the remaining half the day before. The first 24-hour reservations will become available May 25 at 8 a.m. Mountain Daylight Time.

Even before the reservation system was instituted, the park often had to close entrances because the parking lots would fill up.

Last summer, Two Medicine closed 22 times due to overcrowding, while Many Glacier closed 57 — in short, just about every day during the peak season.

In Many Glacier, the wait for the valley to reopen lasted about 2.8 hours, while Two Medicine was just under two hours.

Over the past few years Glacier has seen about 3 million visitors annually, save for 2021, when the east side of the park was closed due to the pandemic.

It’s had a reservation system in place for the Sun Road since 2021. Even with the system, the park is still seeing historically high visitation numbers.

Most folks get advanced reservations online at Recreation.gov.

But visitors can also use the Recreation.gov call center. Contacting the call center does not provide an advantage towards securing a reservation but provides an alternative for those who don’t have access to the internet or are not as familiar with technology. Call centers are open every day from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. MDT and the processing fee remains $2. The following lines are available for callers:

• Reservation line (Toll-Free) - (877) 444-6777 

• Reservation line (International) - (606) 515-6777 

• Reservation line (TDD) - (877) 833-6777