No Reservation Required, But Bring Your Patience

First Come, First Served

The details vary by park. At Yosemite, which sees roughly 4.1 million visitors a year and had required vehicle reservations during peak months since 2020, entry is now first-come, first-served year-round. This includes during the famed February firefall and the busy summer months.

At Arches, where visitation surged 73 percent between 2011 and 2021 and the park has historically closed its gates when parking fills — sometimes before mid-morning — the timed-entry system introduced in 2022 is gone entirely.

At Glacier, park-wide vehicle reservations for Going-to-the-Sun Road have been lifted, replaced with a new system of ticketed shuttles, a three-hour parking limit at Logan Pass, and temporary vehicle diversions when safety thresholds are reached.

Rocky Mountain National Park, by contrast, will keep its timed-entry system in place from late May through mid-October.

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by Corey | Landscape | Longexpo (@flightlevelfoto)

National Parks Belong to the American People

The administration’s rationale is straightforward. Acting Assistant Secretary Kevin Lilly said the changes reflect a belief that “our national parks belong to the American people,” and that expanding access is the priority wherever conditions allow. Rep. Ryan Zinke (R-Mont.) had long called the Glacier reservation system a “vehicle rationing system” that blocked Americans from their own public lands.

At Yosemite, the NPS cited an analysis of 2025 traffic patterns showing that most weekdays maintained stable parking and visitation within operational capacity, suggesting a season-long reservation requirement was broader than necessary.

“Chaos over Conservation”

Conservation groups are not convinced. The National Parks Conservation Association said the Interior Department “chose chaos over conservation” and warned that canceling the Yosemite and Arches systems ignores years of NPS expertise and community input.

Yosemite tour guide and outfitter Roxie Barton told KQED that during peak summer, “there is no such thing as a weekday or a weekend,” pushing back on the NPS analysis. Yosemite Conservancy CEO Cassius Cash urged visitors to come prepared and “treat the park — and each other — with respect,” signaling that the nonprofit is bracing for a more chaotic season.

Moab’s mayor, Joette Langianese, separately noted that contrary to the argument from some Utah state officials that reservations hurt local spending, the timed-entry system at Arches “had no negative economic impact” on the city.

At Glacier, the picture is somewhat more nuanced. Local tourism leaders in Whitefish gave park administrators credit for staying in close communication with gateway communities during the transition, and the new shuttle system gives visitors a car-free option to reach Logan Pass without the stress of hunting for a spot. Glacier Superintendent Dave Roemer acknowledged a genuine tradeoff with the old system: while vehicle reservations reduced midday congestion, they inadvertently pushed visitors into the park in darkness to secure early entry, a pattern he called unsafe. The 2026 model is an attempt to thread that needle. Whether it works will depend heavily on whether the park has enough seasonal staff to manage the real-time diversions the new plan relies on — a question that, given the NPS staffing losses of the past year, is far from settled.