Glacier Park seeing high number of no-shows at North Fork
A hiker crosses the Bowman Creek bridge at Bowman Lake Sunday.
Glacier National Park’s reservation system for the North Fork is working, but not the way the park had hoped, Deputy Superintendent Pete Webster told North Forkers at the Interlocal meeting last week.
“We have a high no-show rate in the North Fork,” he said.
Like other entrances in Glacier, the Park Service implements a reservation system for the area to control crowding in the summer months from 6 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Webster said the park isn’t sure why people are getting reservations, but never showing up. What’s also odd is even with the no-shows, the uphill traffic to Bowman Lake has had to be restricted during the day on several occasions, even during reservation hours.
Bowman is a highly popular destination in the area.
He said the new system on the Going-to-the-Sun Road appears to be working well. This year the Park Service allowed people to enter the Sun Road at St. Mary without a reservation. So far, the park has yet to restrict traffic on the road, though it has done it a few times at Two Medicine this summer.
St. Mary has a greater capacity for visitors and less volume.
Webster also spoke to Logging Creek campground and the Inside North Fork Road.
He said the campground will remain closed this summer, as Logging Creek has again jumped its channel and flooded the campground.
As for the Inside North Fork Road, the Park Service is planning on creating travel plan options and then seeking public comment either later this year or early next year.
He also spoke to fishing regulations on the North Fork of the Flathead. Technically, one doesn’t need a fishing license to fish the east half of the river, as it’s in Glacier and Glacier doesn’t require fishing licenses.
The park boundary is the middle of the river.
However, rangers caution fishermen that they need a Montana state fishing license to fish the west half and most, invariably, end up on that side. Without a Montana license, they’re breaking state game laws.
The state also reminds anglers that under the new regulations, treble hooks are illegal on the North and Middle Forks of the Flathead above the confluence of both rivers.