Glacier Park Faces Record-Breaking Visitation And Staff Shortages
It is one of the busiest springs on record for Glacier National Park: Through May, nearly 300,000 people visited the park. And, for the first time this year, a ticketed entry system is limiting how many visitors can head up the Going-to-the-Sun Road.
Montana Public Radio’s Aaron Bolton spoke with park Deputy Superintendent Pete Webster about expectations, crowds and running the park amid the pandemic.
Aaron Bolton Just wanted to start with expectations for the season. Obviously, folks, businesses in the Flathead Valley are expecting a lot of people. I was just on the east side and hearing the same over there. What are the Park's expectations for this season?
Pete Webster We've been paying attention to visitation projections and talked with a handful of other tourism organizations across the state, and Glacier's the number one draw this year for people coming to Montana as a whole.
As we came out of COVID, our COVID summer last year, we started seeing more movement and more visitation coming towards the park around Labor Day. And that increase occurred each month through the winter even. And certainly our visitation [being] over normal for this time of the year is showing all that to come into fruition.
Bolton Do you think this is going to be a record-breaking year or is it hard to say?
Webster It's hard to say. And again, we'll see how ticketed entry impacts how many folks and where they go in the park and how they travel. But, yeah, I believe — you know, all projections are for this is a scenario that would have record visitation for the park and the area.
Bolton And for the reservation system on Going-to-the-Sun Road, how has it been working?
Webster So logistically/operationally, it's been working really well.
You know, we know we didn't design a perfect system. What we built was intended to be learned and adapted, adjusting numbers as we understand the data. We're trying to find solutions for a long-term problem.
Bolton Crowding was an issue pre-pandemic. The pandemic has definitely intensified the demand for outdoor spaces that Glacier and surrounding areas offer.
I'm wondering if the ticketed entry system is going to be a permanent fix to that historical problem.
Webster What we're doing this summer truly is just a pilot — it is just a temporary for this year. But certainly we are looking at, you know, how do we manage Glacier National Park with the visitation that we've been seeing over the years?
You know, the “blunt tools” as we've started to say, of just swinging a barricade when crowds got too high doesn't work 'cause all the traffic coming in behind it just stacks up behind the barricade and cause more problems. And so whether this is a solution for our problems in the future — or helping form different ways to manage or there's something completely different — is yet to be seen. So it truly is one year but we're also looking at how we need to manage the park well into the future.
Bolton I'm wondering if it may push people into more remote areas of the park — you know, especially if those people are unprepared, could there be more incidents that call for search and rescue?
Webster Well, as far as pushing people into remote areas for that purpose — you know, I'm not sure that that would be the case.
We're definitely, we use the term, "squeezing the balloon." If we don't allow folks into a certain area of the park because it's full, they need to go somewhere else, which means we're expecting to see increased visitation and perhaps travel restrictions for other valleys of the park.
That said, we have been seeing that problem for many years, and in particular, Many Glacier in the North Fork for sure. But we're looking at this ticketed entry as perhaps a tool that can help us manage that situation as well.
Bolton Switching gears to other park operations, I know staffing was an issue last year with the pandemic. I’m wondering if that's going to be an issue this year, and what visitors could see in terms of differences — whether Logan Pass Visitor Center is open this year or not because of those staffing problems.
Webster Right. So yeah, we're still in the pandemic. We still have a lot of the implications and challenges on our park operations from COVID so we won't be at full services this summer.
We'll have more than we had last year. A handful of campgrounds — Rising Sun and St. Mary — we just decided or just determined that we're not able to adequately staff Avalanche campground. So Avalanche campground will not open this year as well.
Things at Logan Pass and the other popular locations are where we're trying to focus our efforts and make sure that we keep operational there at some level.
Bolton Were COVID-19 outbreaks among staff an issue last year? Or did you learn any lessons from last season that you might implement on the staffing front this year?
Webster Well, last year during the summer visitor season, we had no known cases of transmission among the staff or the park visitors within the park. The mitigations we put in place last year were effective.
We've been a proponent of vaccines and recognizing what that can do to protect the park employees as well as the public. And we're in a good spot.
Bolton Are there any concerns that [in] an outbreak among staff, we could see an inability to keep gates open — or other pieces of the park open — and pieces might close down depending on staff?
Webster Yeah, and we certainly were prepared for that last year. And I feel more confident this year that we're in a better position - that that's less likely to happen. But we certainly are prepared.
Bolton Thanks for taking the time.
Webster OK.
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