Parks Drop Timed Entries

Three marquee national parks are dropping broad timed-entry reservations for summer 2026, ending a pandemic-era access system at Yosemite, Glacier, and Arches. (nps.gov) Yosemite said in February it will no longer use a timed reservation system in 2026 after reviewing 2025 traffic, parking, and visitation data. The park said most weekdays last season still had parking available and traffic within operational capacity. (nps.gov) Glacier said on April 14 that vehicle reservations will not be required anywhere in the park in 2026. Instead, it will test a ticketed-only shuttle system and a three-hour parking limit at Logan Pass, one of the park’s busiest choke points. (nps.gov) Arches announced on February 18 that visitors will be able to enter at any time during operating hours in 2026 without an advance timed-entry reservation. The park warned that entrance lines and parking shortages could still hit popular sites, especially on weekends and holidays. (nps.gov) The shift follows several years of reservation experiments that were meant to meter cars into parks during the busiest hours. In 2025, Yosemite required reservations on selected summer dates between 6 a.m. and 2 p.m., Glacier required them on the west side of Going-to-the-Sun Road and the North Fork from June 13 to September 28, and Arches required timed entry from April 1 to July 6 and August 28 to October 31 between 7 a.m. and 4 p.m. (nps.gov 1) (nps.gov 2) (nps.gov 3) The National Park Service is not abandoning crowd controls altogether. Its February announcement said Glacier will keep targeted congestion management, including active management on Going-to-the-Sun Road, parking limits at Logan Pass, and temporary vehicle diversions if safety thresholds are reached. (nps.gov) Arches also said vehicles may still be diverted from entrances when the park gets too congested, even without a timed-entry program. Yosemite is still telling visitors to expect heavy traffic from April through October and to reserve lodging and camping well ahead of time. (nps.gov 1) (nps.gov 2) The 2026 changes are not systemwide across the National Park Service. Rocky Mountain National Park said it will keep timed-entry reservations from May 22 through October 12, 2026, for vehicles entering between 9 a.m. and 2 p.m. (nps.gov) Park officials are framing the rollback as a move toward more spontaneous trips while keeping narrower controls where bottlenecks are worst. For summer travelers, the reservation screen is disappearing at three headline parks, but the lines may not. (nps.gov 1) (nps.gov 2) (nps.gov 3)