An expanded reservation system and construction likely to loom large for Glacier National Park visitors in 2023

Ticketed entry and planned construction on the Going-to-the-Sun Road will again likely prove the biggest concerns for visitors going to Glacier National Park in 2023, according to Superintendent Dave Roemer.

While the ticketed entry system for the Sun Road has been in place for the past two seasons, 2023 will see the inclusion of the Two Medicine and Many Glacier entrances. Starting this year, reservations on that side of the park will be required from July 1 through Sept. 10 from 6 a.m. to 3 p.m.

According to Roemer, the expansion of the system was a necessity. The park shut down Many Glacier nearly 60 times in 2022 due to overcrowding and closed the gate to Two Medicine on 20 occasions.

“It has been apparent to us that Many Glacier has needed some kind of ticketed system for a long time. By having vehicle reservations in that valley, we are hoping that we will not have to close the gate in an unexpected fashion in 2023,” he said last month. “We are not trying to limit visitor numbers. We are trying to make sure they are distributed throughout the park in a more efficient manner so that more people get to have something of a traditional Glacier experience.”

While implementing the ticketed entry system at Many Glacier was an easy call, Roemer said that pushback from locals and others made the decision to include Two Medicine a much tougher decision.

“I just don’t think it would be possible for us to manage the park [the way] we are now and leave something out of the ticketed entry system. If we left one place out of the system, that would be the place where everyone would go and the Two Medicine experience would no longer be the Two Medicine experience,” Roemer said. “We think we have struck a good balance by moving the times of the reservations to 6 a.m. to 3 p.m. everywhere in the park. There is a lot of daylight between 3 p.m. and the end of the day.”

Roemer said park officials will collect data, review and adjust as necessary in the years ahead.

“There are no easy answers to any of this,” he said.

Despite criticisms, the program may be showing signs of success. 2022 marked only the second time in the past 10 years — excluding the Covid shutdown in 2020 — that the park saw fewer visitors than the previous year.

While the expansion of the ticketed entry system will put new restraints on visitors, Roemer pointed out there may be the opportunity for tourists to see the Sun Road in its entirety from the east side without a reservation if the road is cleared of snow before July 1.

“Many Glacier and Two Medicine will also be open before the reservation system kicks in, so we will have to keep an eye out for congestion,” he said.

In addition, Roemer said the Many Glacier and Two Medicine entrance stations will be fully staffed in 2023 — as will the aquatic invasive species checkpoints at both locations — despite being unmanned all of 2022.

“We really don’t think we lost a lot of revenue this past year with that decision,” he said. “More and more people are getting their entrance passes online and paying the fees there, so many of the people who show up at those entrances were just showing us they had already paid.”

IN ADDITION to the ticketed reservation system, visitors will once again have to contend with construction as the final piece of the Sun Road rehabilitation is completed. The stretch of road from Apgar to north Lake McDonald will see construction and delays of up to 30 minutes in 2023 as crews complete the utility work that began in 2022 before milling and resurfacing the road.

“The park needs construction and repair, as inconvenient as that may be. It’s tough for everyone in the moment, but it is a good thing in the long run,” Roemer said. “If you don’t fix things, they eventually reach a state where they cannot be fixed and we don’t want to see that.”

According to Roemer, the utility work along the road should be finished by mid May and crews will spend June until November removing the 9 inches of asphalt along the stretch of road and replacing it with a new 6-inch deep surface.

During the project, the park and the Federal Highway Administration will work with the construction company to determine how best to avoid congestion in the area and reduce peak traffic flow during the construction.

“We don’t have a traffic plan set up for the construction just yet, but the one thing we do know is that traffic will go through the construction during the daytime with up to 30 minute wait times,” Roemer said. “During the nighttime, it will be mostly closed with just a couple of times for vehicles to get through until it opens again at 6 a.m.”

In addition, Roemer says the park is expecting a surge in traffic when the reservation window closes at 3 p.m. each day.

“Two years ago, when the ticketed entry ended at 5 p.m. we saw a peak at that time and last year the peak was after it ended at 4 p.m. We don’t see any reason why that trend would change next year,” he said.

The park will also see other construction work in the summer of 2023 as efforts continue to replace the aging and damaged Upper McDonald Creek bridge as well as several bridges in the North Fork area.

The McDonald Creek construction will restrict access to the bridge and the road beyond to the National Park Service and landowners during construction. The construction area will be closed to public access for the duration of the project.

Roemer says the park does not anticipate any major traffic delays or closures in association with the North Fork projects.

THE PARK is also looking forward to putting the finishing touches on and opening its new comfort station at Big Bend along the Sun Road in 2023.

“It will be nice to finish that project. It is a beautiful structure that everyone has seen, but it’s just not quite functional yet,” Roemer said. “It’s not fun to put this great new structure up in the park and then having to keep a closed sign on it.”

The park also will begin the planning of an extensive rehabilitation project for the Many Glacier area in the coming year. The effort, which will include utility work, will entail the closure of the Swift Current campground in 2025.

Finally, the park says it will make a strong effort to expand its message to tourists about how the ticketed entry system works before visitors arrive at its gate.

“We realize that it is not just our problem. We know that everyone is having to answer questions about the ticketed entry system and we are working to come up with an improved way to communicate in advance how to visit the park. One way to reduce the feeling of overcrowding is to physically have less people in the park, another way is to have the people that are there have a smaller footprint while they are here. We want people to not only know how to get to Glacier, but also how to be when they are in Glacier,” Roemer said. “Unfortunately, the old days are not coming back and a trip to a busy national park is going to require some level of planning and preparation, but that doesn’t have to be a bad thing.”

Reporter Jeremy Weber can be reached at jweber@dailyinterlake.com.