Glacier may do away with reservation system in 2026

Glacier National Park superintendent Dave Roemer said the park is considering going without a reservation system in 2026, pending approval of the plan from the Department of Interior.  

Roemer made the announcement at the Columbia Falls Chamber of Commerce meeting on Tuesday. An official announcement with details was expected by the end of the week, but it has not happened yet.  

The tentative plan would institute a 3-hour parking limit at Logan Pass and additionally add a shuttle service to the pass from both the east and west sides starting at 6 a.m. on the Going-the-Sun Road.  

The idea is to shuttle about 1,000 people to the pass each day during the busy summer months. A shuttle ride would amount to a ticket to hike the popular Highline Trail.  

The shuttles, would not, however stop at Avalanche Creek, another popular hiking destination. The idea is to get people up to the Logan Pass with minimal, if any, delays in the morning.  

People would have to reserve a shuttle spot via Recreation.gov. There may be some advanced reservations available, but Roemer said he preferred the reservations to be available the day before, as people who get them have a tendency to actually use them.  

As far as Logan Pass parking is concerned, there would likely be some sort of ticket system. Roemer noted that the maximum parking ticket fine in a national park is $6,000 and possible jail time.  

Glacier has 37 shuttles in its fleet.  

Roemer noted that Glacier has been able to hire enough staff as seasonal employees within the limits of its budget, but there is still a hiring freeze in place for permanent staff.  

The no reservation requirement comes with a major caveat however: If Glacier gets too full, areas of the park could close. He didn’t anticipate that would happen on the Sun Road (people could access the road from the east side last year without a reservation), but Many Glacier, Two Medicine and the North Fork closed rather routinely in the summer months when parking lots filled up in the summers before a reservation requirement.  

Two Medicine will see construction this year and limited parking to begin with.  

This is yet another pilot program, the sixth in many years. The Park is hoping to have a permanent plan in place in the coming years.  

Glacier first instituted a reservation requirement in 2021. This year it went to a timed entry system, where users got tickets to enter the Sun Road in certain time slots. Early morning slots went quickly, but later day slots were easy to get most of the summer.  

Still, the system didn’t stop traffic from backing up onto Highway 2 in West Glacier, Roemer noted.  

A fix for that sort of thing will require the state widening Highway 2 at West Glacier, so there’s a bypass lane where traffic can go around people trying to enter the park.  

The glut comes because the turn lane into Glacier fills up and spills out into both lanes of Highway 2.  

On a busy day, prior data has shown that about 5,000 vehicles a day enter the Sun Road.  

Republican Congressman Ryan Zinke has long been a critic of the reservation system in Glacier, repeatedly saying he wanted a better shuttle system instead.  

The summer of 2026 may very well prove to be a test of that theory.