Glacier National Park seeks feedback on crowd management

Glacier National Park will hold a series of meetings to talk about traffic and crowd management in the park and possible solutions.

The meetings come after the Park Service already announced it would implement a new timed entry system on the west side of the Going-to-the-Sun Road and the North Fork in the summer of 2025. Visitors from the St. Mary side of the Sun Road can still get in without a reservation 

“The pilots were initiated in summer 2021 as a response to increasing issues with traffic congestion, including backups onto U.S. Highway 2, infrastructure capacity, and impacts to park resources from high concentrations of people in the most popular areas of the park. Prior to piloting reservation systems, the park relied on temporary and unplanned closures of parking lots, park roads, or entire valleys to mitigate vehicle congestion,” Glacier officials said in a release. 

But the reservation system could very well run into political headwinds in 2025. Montana Republican Congressman Ryan Zinke in the Biden Administration tried to defund the reservation system and has already expressed displeasure for the plans for a timed entry system in 2025.

Zinke said he favors a more robust shuttle system in Glacier, with parking outside the park. Right now, the shuttle only serves the Sun Road. 

Republicans now control the House, the Senate and the Presidency under Donald Trump. 

Even with a reservation system, Glacier saw just over three million visitors through September, with record visitation in September itself. 

There will be virtual public meetings and several in-person meetings as well. 

The virtual meetings are: 

Nov. 21: Virtual meeting from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. Join by following the link at: https://parkplanning.nps.gov/MeetingNotices.cfm?projectID=118357.  

 Dec. 16: Virtual meeting from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m.. Join by following the link at: https://parkplanning.nps.gov/MeetingNotices.cfm?projectID=118357. 

The local in person meetings are: 

Dec. 4 with an open house from 4 to 6 p.m. at the Cedar Creek Lodge in Columbia Falls.  

 Dec. 5 Dec. 5 from 4 to 6 p.m. at Blackfeet Community College in Browning.

People can also comment online.