Zinke right to eliminate Glacier reservations

As a lifelong resident of Montana and 42 year resident of the Flathead Valley, I strongly disagree with the lack of support of Congressmen Zinke’s efforts to eliminate the reservation system implemented by a distant third party for our Glacier National Park (Zinke should pause effort to derail Glacier’s reservation system, Daily Inter Lake editorial, July 30).

The system is wrought with shortcomings, was poorly designed and ridiculously priced.

First: It favors applicants with super high speed internet while those of us in rural Montana have to watch our requests for a pass ping with constant suggestions to refresh while the number of available passes for that particular day go down and down, finally to zero while we end up with no ticket and many out-of-state friends and relatives without a Glacier Park experience.

Second: When you arrive at the entry gate with an entry pass, you are greeted with many park employees ready to assist you. These are employees that could be doing more productive things like patrolling campsites, helping hikers on the trails, responding to questions at visitor centers located throughout the park, allowing park rangers to assist visitors and solving problems. After you are cleared with your pass you then go to the entry gate to pay or present your park pass, another step demonstrating poor use of park personnel.

Third: The pricing is unbelievably low, relative to the joy of being in the park. During one of my several discussions about my frustrations with the system, with the superintendent and his staff, I learned that the $2 price of the ticket was simply the charge that the third party providing this broken system was charging the Park Service! In other words, all those employees screening visitors for entry passes are expenses of the taxpayer and not paid by the ticket purchaser. As a member of a very old hiking group that is still trying to enjoy the park every week, I have witnessed the “banking” of entry tickets for most of the summer. With the price at $2 and a high speed internet, you will find many tickets sold but never used.

Fourth: Getting an entry pass reservation in no way assures you of any kind of parking anywhere in the park. In fact, a party can enter after 3 p.m. and drive to Logan Pass and wait for a parking spot to open up. They can then “set up camp” in the parking lot and spend the night, eliminating a spot for a full day. None of the funding for the many road improvements in the park we have seen over the past several years is going into building more parking lots. I realize the space is very limited but it is still a frustrating problem.

Fifth: Zinke is more concerned with his Montana constituents than the local newspaper. We thank him for watching out for our best interests in keeping the park as an amenity that we should be able to enjoy all year long, while putting up with the extra 1 to 2 million visitors we have every summer.

The only viable solution is a reliable and efficient shuttle system. It would be used by locals and visitors alike and offer a very safe, efficient and informative visit to the park.

That would require large parking lots in many areas around the park. There was a perfect location at West Glacier that unfortunately was sold to the park concessionaire and turned into a massive RV park.

Let’s support an investment in a thorough and comprehensive study on a shuttle system and fix our problems the right way.

Greg Barkus served in the Montana Legislature from 2003-2009. He lives in Bigfork.