Glacier National Park starting ticketed Entry

Im saw an announcement that the east entrance is now open it was closed last year

As for construction has anyone ever been there on the GTTS road when they were not working on it? Just a fact of the short construction season and terrible climate. I didn't know about the park closures but I have noticed more question posts about GNP

I’ll repeat my response to the RMNP thread.

This is a bad idea. These are our NP's! We should be able to go when we want! we were in CO last year and trying to get in RMNP was terrible because of the timed entry. We ended up with a 3:00 entry. And they are charging to get the timed entry. Hopefully this practice will stop.

There's an old saying...never let a crisis go to waste.

I'll give 10-1 odds the popular parks will keep ticketing forever.

Maybe true and likely is, but then I looked at the date this was posted

I wish they didn't have to do this either, but the whole experience of visiting these popular National Parks is being severely degraded by over crowding. It was becoming almost impossible to access trailheads off going to the sun road due to the crowds and traffic, and you could get stuck in hours long traffic jams from folks waiting for spaces. At times the predominant sound in the St Marys valley was not the wind and birds, but traffic. They had to do something about this.

I am curious what other suggestions folks have to address this particular problem and the issue of over crowding in the National Parks?

In many cases the solution has been shuttle buses during the busy season (eg Zion) but this is harder when the road is also a thoroughfare (eg RMNP and glacier) and with COVID restrictions.

Horsedoc wrote:
Maybe true and likely is, but then I looked at the date this was posted

3/31/21...I'm not getting it. What's special about the date?

FWC: It may or may not be appropriate but it's an end-around on the process. They do it in the name of the virus and then they never follow the process and look for better ways.

This is not a new problem for Glacier (or the other popular parks), and COVID has only exacerbated the problem. Probably the biggest impact from COVID has been sky high visitation. Many of the parks had the highest visitation ever last year, and we have all read about the problems this caused. They are expecting even higher visitation this year, so if this is not an appropriate time to be proactive about mitigating resource impacts and try to maintain visitor experience, I am not sure there will ever be one.

Last year the only option they had at Glacier was just to close the gate with no warning when the park was dangerously over crowded. Is that a better option?

If the system works OK and visitation remains high, I imagine the reservations will be here to stay. The NPS is in an impossible situation here, and criticizing without offering constructive alternatives doesn't really help.

^Agreed.
But rvnet members often never let a good opportunity to complain pass them by either.

There ARE issues with pandemic policy, but this is not one of them.
Being against this is like saying they shouldn’t reserve or charge for campsites but just let people “camp” everywhere....I mean, can’t see any harm inthat.