Glacier National Park superintendent talks visitor management, shuttle buses at 'state of the park' address

Glacier National Park Superintendent Dave Roemer shared findings from last season’s approach to visitor use management during a presentation at the Northwest Montana History Museum on Monday.

The Jan. 22 event was hosted by the Glacier National Park Volunteer Associates, a volunteer group in the park that put in over 6,000 hours last summer across 23 different roles. Many volunteers were in attendance as Roemer went over data from last season and talked “inside baseball” for park operations. 

Starting with its annual work plan, Roemer said park leadership wants to continue to focus on communication and collaboration with employees and volunteers. Pointing to results from the 2022 and 2023 Viewpoint Survey, a survey for federal employees, Roemer said about 90% of Glacier workers felt like they were a valued member of their team and had trust in their supervisor. 

The park employs 150 year-round staff. That number balloons to about 550 with the arrival of seasonal staff in the summer. Roemer said park officials work with employees to see where they want to be in the park, and when it comes time to make changes in where workers are allocated, administrators try to remain transparent. 

“They care about the park as much, or more than the superintendent does,” Roemer said. “They want to know why, they want to see the transparency behind those decisions about whether to allocate more here or less there, and how we can best leverage it.” 

Visitor use management is important for understanding where to best put staff, Roemer said. He noted that the park received the ability to scan vehicle reservation tickets about halfway through the summer, giving officials access to data points that they did not previously have. 

“That's what we needed to see, that told us a lot of things about the return rate, how many people came back on day two and day three, how many people were coming in that had an recreation.gov account from a Flathead Valley ZIP code versus a Florida ZIP code,” Roemer said. 

The West Glacier entrance is the park’s busiest, Roemer said. Looking at a line graph of the average hourly traffic counts from that entrance, he said a lot can be learned about when people are getting into the park. When the pilot vehicle reservation system was in place last year from June 13 to Sept. 10, there was an increase in people entering the park between the hours of 4 and 5 a.m. Throughout the day, this moves into a shallow bell curve that sharply rises between the hours of 2 and 3 p.m., when the daily reservation window ends.

Roemer compared this to a graph showing average hourly traffic counts between Sept. 11 and 17, following the end of the vehicle reservation period. That line graph shows a more classic bell curve, with the majority of visitors arriving between 9 and 11 a.m. The data shows a higher volume of visitors in this period that persists longer throughout the day.

The park is always in a balance between improving visitor experience and protecting resources, Roemer said. Over the past year, many people have asked for an expanded or reinvisioned shuttle service that would ideally curb traffic in the park. 

Roemer said people's expectations and hopes for the shuttle system right now are not in line with the park’s finances. Though the park is adding six more sprinter vans this summer, it is currently running and maintaining the fleet solo, an expensive task. 

“When I hike in the park, I take the shuttles and I love it,” Roemer said. “But it's going to be really hard for us to sustain the shuttle system under our current financial model.” 

They’ve also advertised this winter the expansion of the commercial use shuttle system. Previously, commercial shuttles were only permitted to carry visitors who rented a bicycle, but will be opened up to hikers next season, he said.

“We're trying to provide some private market opportunities for people and more ways to be in the park without your car,” Roemer said. 

Roemer noted that the park has not received its annual budget yet, which will be handed down after Congress passes its budget. According to Reuters, Congress passed its third stopgap funding bill to avoid a government shutdown last week. Its next deadline will be in early March.

Highlighting “wins,” Roemer said he was proud of being able to participate in the Iinnii Initiative, a Blackfeet-led effort to reintroduce bison onto the landscape, part of which includes Waterton-Glacier. In June 2023, 40 bison were released near Chief Mountain.

“This is where it's at folks, when doing an action can have that dimension of ecosystem restoration, cultural restoration and human justice, you can't get any better than that. So, this is why I like to work in Glacier,” Roemer said.

He lauded the decision to partner with Glacier Country Tourism to better field visitor calls during the summertime. Roemer described it as a natural fit, noting that when people called because they were disappointed about being unable to get into the park without a vehicle reservation,  staff at Glacier Country could go through the other options for visiting the area. He said Glacier Country Tourism’s call center in Missoula answered 20,000 calls last summer that would not have been able to be answered by park staff. 

Roemer said speaking with folks at the volunteer association is one way of showing gratitude for the thousands of hours they put into working in Glacier National Park. 

“When I stopped being an interpretive ranger, I went from a job where everyday I got to tell somebody about something that I loved. And they would say to me, ‘you've got the best job in the world!’ But when I got into management, I met fewer and fewer people. I wind up having meetings with the same people … So, it's nice to be able to come out and talk to people in that way.” Roemer said. 

More information about the Glacier National Park Volunteer Associates can be found on their website, gnpva.org. Learn more about 2024 operations in Glacier National Park at their website nps.gov/glac. 

Reporter Taylor Inman can be reached at 406-758-4433 or by emailing tinman@dailyinterlake.com.

    The top graph shows the average hourly traffic counts during the vehicle reservation period at the West Glacier entrance. The bottom graph shows the average hourly traffic count after the system ended for the season, between Sept. 11 and 17. (Taylor Inman/Daily Inter Lake)