A Whitefish tourism town hall last week addressed concerns about air and car travel impacting summer visitation and presented an overview of the future of parking at Glacier National Park.  

Glacier Park International Airport will suspend service from Mondays at 6 p.m. through Fridays at noon, between July 6 and July 31 to repair the runway.  

“It’s important to know that it’s going to hurt a lot of locals, because about 85% of the inbound and outbound traffic are residents,” said Zak Anderson, Explore Whitefish executive director.  

Whitefish Mountain Resort Marketing Director Matt Gebo said the resort is concerned with July being the “meat” of the summer.  

“When we went into this summer, we knew about the airport project ... but I think nobody foresaw that gas prices would double,” Gebo said. “That’s obviously going to cause a little bit of a challenge.”  

Summer season weekend operations started at the resort over the Memorial Day weekend. Seven-day operations start June 13 and run through Labor Day. Closing day is Sept. 20. The SNOW Bus will run every day when the resort is open.  

Summer resort visitors should take note of trail detours during the Flathead National Forest Big Mountain Fuels Reduction Project. With trees down and equipment out, trail closures and reroutes are in place all day, regardless of the presence of active work or the location of good huckleberries, officials said.  

The tree work being done from Chair 2 toward the Inspiration ski slope is expected to create terrain that is more similar to the Good Medicine glades area.  

The Summit Nature Center at the resort, for the second year, will be impacted by federal Forest Service budget cuts. The Nature Center will open June 13 and will only operate Wednesday through Saturday.  

Current resort lodging reservations are trending behind last year, although the resort has 17 weddings booked this summer. 

Gebo also reflected on the winter season.  

“We fared much better than our neighbors,” he said. “We saw Schweitzer [in Sandpoint, Idaho] go from 100% open to 30% open; we’d go from 100% open to 95% open.”  

There was about 70% of average snowfall, although that’s more reflective of the summit than the base. Gebo said unlike most years, there were no deep freezes, which was a boost for visitation.  

Despite recording two days with the highest number of total visitors, the season turnout was down about 11% year over year, but financial results were still strong, he said.  

The average stay for lodging increased to 6.2 nights with 4.2 days of skiing. The resort is seeing an increase in spring breakers and college groups visiting.  

There was a season pass holder from every state except Delaware. 

GLACIER NATIONAL Park Superintendent Dave Roemer shared information about a future transportation plan. 

This summer, reservations are required to ride the park’s Going-to-the-Sun Road shuttle. Three-hour timed parking will be implemented at Logan Pass. Most shuttle reservations will be available at 7 p.m. the day prior.  

The Park Service plans to hold more public meetings this summer on a future transportation plan to be implemented in 2027, provided it gets federal funding for proposals to add more parking areas, shuttles and staff. 

The preliminary plan would add 540-600 new parking spaces at lower elevation west and east “hiker hubs.”  

The North Fork would not see any shuttles, although Bowman Lake parking could be optimized, Roemer said. A sensitive alpine environment and a historic resource, Logan Pass will not see expanded parking, he said.  

Cycling may have a finite season and could be further prohibited on the Sun Road in the summer, although there could be expanded access on Inside North Fork Road.