Glacier National Park starting ticketed Entry

We have been to Zion many times over the years. I can remember pre shuttle and the sometimes hard time to find a parking spot. Then it got to the point of you could hardly find a parking spot at any trailhead. Then they instituted the mandatory shuttle you were no longer allowed to drive down the main canyon. We do canyoneering and as such have to haul a fair amount of gear. I thought the mandatory shuttle was going to be a major pita. In the end I had changed my mind. We no longer had to wait for parking spaces at the trailheads we used, the shuttle ran very frequently never had to wait more than 10 minutes. Yes we got more than a few strange looks and comments , why are carrying rope, are we supposed to where helmets in the park stuff like that. Then a few years ago I took my son with me to Zion as he hadn't been there since he was little and it had been several years for myself as well. First it took us 45 minutes to get a parking spot. Then we had to wait over 90 minutes to get on the shuttle and they were coming every 10 minutes or less. We almost left. However I thought let me go check with the a ranger and see what the deal is these days. She told me this normal but once we got out of the visitor center that it wouldn't be a problem. Well she was wrong. The shuttles were packed. If you got off at a stop you couldn't hardly get back on, you might have to wait for 3,4 or 5 shuttles before you could get back on, no it wasn't 90+ minutes but it might be 30 minutes. We got down to the Virgin River Narrows one of my previously favorite hikes there. It was unbelievable. The paved part of the trail was one constant line of people the entire way to the end of the pavement. Previous times we had hiked that not that it wasn't somewhat busy but this was crazy. Then we used to hike up the canyon 4 or 5 miles after the first 500 yards the people would thin out and after a mile or so you would find very few people and most of the time it was like you were the only one there. This time it was like we were at a water park. We went up about 2.5 miles and there were still at least a hundred people in view at all times. Not to mention their behavior and trash, plastic water bottles floating down the river, trash everywhere waiting for the next big rain to wash it all downstream. I was so disappointed. And for the first time in my life I thought it might be a good idea to limit park admittance. I had heard grumblings about lotteries etc and had previously always been against them, not so sure I am against them now.

I have found this to be the case at Bryce, Grand Canyon, Canyonlands, Arches and even in some of at least what used to be considered remote places like Cedar Mesa or the Escalante area where you could go for days without seeing anyone now required permits, max people per day, no places to park at those areas.

I realized the parks were not there for my personal enjoyment but for all peoples enjoyment however in many areas it is no longer enjoyable, yes the scenery is still great assuming you can overlook the crowds in front of you but it is no longer "getting away" it is more like an amusement park.

dodge guy wrote:
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.

Everything has a capacity, everything has a limit. Do we just overrun the National Parks until they are just a fully paved parking lot?

^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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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