Wed. Nov 27th, 2024

Entrance to Glacier National Park in 2020 (Photo courtesy of Glacier National Park via NPS Flickr, Public domain).

Visitors to Glacier National Park in 2025 will again be required to have a vehicle reservation to access the Park’s western areas, but the process will look a little different than in previous years. Park officials announced on Thursday that the fifth year of a pilot vehicle reservation system will be implemented with several changes from 2024.

As opposed to this summer, when vehicle reservations were required to access three of the Park’s popular entrances, visitors will only need advanced reservations to access the North Fork area at Polebridge and the West Glacier entrance to the Going-to-the-Sun Road. Reservations will be required from June 13 through Sept. 28, to reflect shifting visitor patterns after Glacier officials recorded the busiest September on record with more than 600,000 visitors. In addition, vehicle reservations will be required starting at 7 a.m., an hour later than in 2024.

The biggest change in this year’s pilot program is a shift to timed entry reservations at the Park’s western entrances. Visitors to the North Fork and west side of Going-to-the-Sun Road, the iconic alpine highway that bisects that heart of the park, will be able to enter according to the time block they reserve. Visitors can then remain in the park for as long as they like on the day of their reservation. The park will release additional information about time blocks, but said that multiple time blocks will be available each day.

“In 2025 we are continuing successful measures from the 2024 season, including access to Apgar Village, Two Medicine, and the East Entrance to Going-to-the-Sun Road outside of the vehicle reservation system,” Glacier National Park Superintendent Dave Roemer said in a press release. “Within that successful framework we are going to try timed entry to see if we can minimize congestion, optimize visitor arrival, and improve visitor experiences. Timed entry has proven to be a valuable tool in other popular national parks and should reduce congestion and wait times at the West Entrance to Going-to-the-Sun Road.”

For the park’s West Entrance, travel along Going-to-the-Sun Road beyond Apgar Village will require a vehicle reservation beginning June 13. As with previous years, visitors with activity reservations — including lodging, camping, transportation and other commercial activities — will be able to use their reservations for entry, as long as the commercial reservations originate beyond the Apgar vehicle checkpoint and west of Logan Pass.

Access to the St. Mary entrance on the park’s east side, as well as to Two Medicine Valley, will not change from 2024. Visitors will not need an advance reservation to pass through either entrance, though officials caution that entry may be temporarily restricted during the day when areas become too congested.

As of Thursday, park officials are not planning on requiring vehicle reservations for the Many Glacier Valley, however, the Swiftcurrent area will be closed to public access during the summer of 2025 due to ongoing construction, greatly reducing the amount of parking in Many Glacier. Park officials are currently researching access alternatives for next year.

As in previous years, the vehicle reservation system at Glacier will be managed through the recreation.gov website. While there is no cost for a reservation, a $2 processing fee is charged on each transaction. A portion of all reservations will be available on a rolling basis 120 days in advance, starting on Feb. 12, 2025, at 8 a.m. All remaining vehicle reservations will be available at 7 p.m. for next-day entry beginning on June 12.

Any visitor entering Glacier National Park is required to have a valid entrance pass —separate from a vehicle reservation — which includes a seven-day $35 vehicle pass, an Interagency Annual/Lifetime Pass, or a Glacier National Park Annual Pass. Visitors can enter the park through all entrances before 7 a.m. or after 3 p.m. without a vehicle reservation, and tribal members and landowners inside the park are exempt from the reservation system.

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