Glacier National Park's new shuttle reservations system is frustrating visitors

Ben Stamper and his wife were relentless. Each morning for several days, they logged in to Recreation.gov and practiced trying to secure tickets for Glacier National Park's new Logan Pass shuttle. They tried starting the shuttle at different locations, refreshing the page (or not), fiddling with dates and following a global clock. Nothing worked, until it did.

"We failed every day except the real run, but it enabled us to perfect our strategy," Stamper said, adding that tickets were gone "in virtually 30 seconds from opening."

Stamper and his wife will be heading to Glacier this summer from North Carolina and aim to hike the Highline Trail, an iconic 15-mile out-and-back with sweeping views that begins at Logan Pass. Under new parking lot time limits, hiking the whole way means you need a shuttle reservation. And like Stamper, Glacier National Park visitors from around the country say scoring advance tickets to the new Logan Pass shuttle is a stressful experience, mirroring other high-stakes booking processes for national park camp sites and timed entries.

The new shuttle to Logan Pass, home to several popular trailheads and a visitor center, is part of sweeping changes to traffic management at Glacier this year. Park officials announced this spring they were getting rid of timed, ticketed entry at all park entrances this summer but also instituting a three-hour parking limit at Logan Pass alongside shuttle service instead.

An unspecified number of shuttle tickets are available on Recreation.gov 60 days in advance on a rolling basis. Tickets go live at 8 a.m. Mountain Daylight Time, with reservations costing only $1. Starting on June 30, the remaining tickets for each day will become available at 7 p.m. the night before. But given the limited Wi-Fi and cellular service in and near the park, they will likely be a challenge for many visitors to secure.

"The majority of tickets are available the night before," park spokesperson Autumn Sifuentes wrote in an email. "Ticket use data from previous years has shown that tickets and reservations purchased the night before are the most likely to be used while tickets and reservations purchased months in advance are the least likely to be used. Given this trend, the park is limiting advanced tickets while maximizing night before tickets."

Assurances that most tickets will be available the night before aren't calming visitors' fears of missing out. Facebook groups and Reddit subreddits dedicated to Glacier are filled with comments from users fretting over shuttle passes. Many don't want to wait until the night before for a trip they'd planned over a year in advance, leaving to chance the only way to hike the famous Highline Trail. While Sifuentes said the shuttle would run 700 to 800 passengers each day, visitation to Logan Pass is much higher than that.

Floridian Paula Adams also did practice runs to secure her ticket. She's visiting Glacier by train and relying on various shuttles, including the park-provided Logan Pass shuttle and one through the lodge where she's staying, to get around. "The actual process of booking was like old-school eBay," Adams said. "You're sitting there, and your heart is pounding."

Texan Rachel Crowley will be in Glacier at the end of June and beginning of July. She logged in and set up payment methods in advance. When only one ticket popped up, she added it to her cart and checked out. When she hit refresh, another ticket - at a different time of day on the date she was visiting - was the only option available. She checked out and hit refresh for a third time. On the third try, two tickets at the same time of day became available.

"It was insane," Crowley said. "I've never participated in anything like that. I feel so much compassion for people who weren't able to get them." She thinks her new fiber-optic internet may have helped.

It took Keegan Ripley, a second-time Glacier visitor from the Twin Cities area in Minnesota, numerous tries to get tickets. "I didn't have good internet, and that prevented me from getting tickets," Ripley said. "It's just based on whoever could click the fastest. I don't think it's a really fair process." He was eventually able to get tickets but remains worried about unclear instructions for getting tickets validated before boarding.

Recreation.gov, the platform for booking public land camp sites, river rafting permits and more, is notoriously hard to use. That problem extends past the new Glacier shuttle to public lands across the country. Recent reporting by Re:Public found that bots are grabbing permits away from real people. The platform is run by Booz Allen Hamilton, a consulting firm that makes millions of dollars a year in booking fees.

Despite the booking difficulties, Stamper considers the shuttle service a huge plus this year. "The alternative in years past was to get to the parking lot at 5 a.m.," Stamper said, to secure a parking spot before the lot filled up. "No thanks."

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This story was originally published June 5, 2026 at 10:49 AM.