Thither & Yon

You’ve done it. The stars have aligned, and you’re finally taking that epic national parks adventure this year. You’ve made a budget, you’ve scheduled time away from school and work, and you’ve scored some fantastic places to stay. There’s just one problem: you’ve only now discovered that one of your favorite activities requires an advance ticket, you missed the on-sale date, and it’s already sold out.

It’s a disappointing feeling, but all is not lost! It’s usually possible to score a last-minute ticket if you know how to play the game. We’ve been in your shoes, and we’ll tell you exactly what you need to know to save your vacation.

First, a quick explanation: Many of America’s national parks, forests, and other public lands have started getting overwhelmed in the peak summer travel season. To better control the human impact on the environment – and to make sure people spend more time having fun and less time fighting crowds – some locations require a timed ticket for access. The list of locations and activities gets a little longer every year. Here are some of the major places you’ll need a reservation for in 2022:

• Cadillac Summit Road in Acadia National Park
• Going-to-the-Sun Road and the North Fork in Glacier National Park
• Entry to Arches National Park
• Entry to Rocky Mountain National Park
• Angels Landing Trail and the shuttle system in Zion National Park
• Old Rag Mountain in Shenandoah National Park
• Sunrise Viewing at Haleakalā National Park
• Entry to Muir Woods National Monument

Permits or tickets are required for some minor areas, too, including access to the Mount Evans Recreation Area in Colorado and hiking permits for Mount Saint Helens National Volcanic Monument in Washington. Not sure if you need an advance ticket? Your best bet is to do a simple internet search, or you can check the website for the national park, forest, monument, or other public land you plan to visit. Most agencies try to make it pretty clear when you need a reservation.

These tickets are usually only good for a specific time – ranging anywhere from 30 minutes (Acadia) to several days (Glacier) – and are needed in ADDITION to any regular entry fees. For example, if you’re planning to roll the family station wagon into Arches National Park between April 3 and October 3 this year, you’ll need to buy a timed entry ticket before you arrive AND pay the regular park entry fee of $30 per car (or be ready to show your annual pass, which is a really good deal for most people). The good news is that advance tickets are cheap – generally no more than a few bucks.

But if you missed the early reservation deadline, don’t despair – your trip isn’t doomed! (Probably.) Most parks and public lands start taking reservations early in the year, but a portion of the tickets will be withheld and released later for last-minute travelers. For example, tickets for entry to Glacier National Park in 2022 go on sale on March 2nd at 8 a.m. MST, and they’re likely to sell out pretty quickly. But the powers-that-be will hold some tickets back and make them available ONE DAY BEFORE they’re valid, also starting at 8 a.m. Mountain Time.

So how do you score one of these last-minute reservations? As long as the park or public land you’re visiting is selling their tickets on Recreation.gov – and most of them are – here’s what you need to do:

1. Do your research. Because every public land does things a little differently, it’s critical to start by checking the page for your national park or forest to get the details. A search engine should get you there, but if you get lost, check the “Plan Your Visit” section (national park) or “Passes & Permits” (national forest). Read carefully, and determine when last-minute tickets are released. Note: sometimes – like in the case of climbing permits for Mount Saint Helens – there aren’t any. But that’s because permits are issued monthly, so as long as your trip isn’t for another four to eight weeks, you’ve got enough time to secure one.
2. Create an account on Recreation.gov. If you don’t already have one, sign up for an account and save your payment information now – quick, while you’re still thinking about it! Even if it’ll be several months before the last-minute tickets are available, doing the bureaucratic legwork now will save you time later. Be sure to identify the correct page on Recreation.gov that’s selling your permit, and save it.
3. Get ready! Make sure you mark in your calendar for the day and time that your permits go up for sale. Be sure to double-check the time zone, and don’t forget to take into account the time zone you’ll be in if you’ll already be on the road. Make sure you’ll have a decent internet connection when they go on sale, and don’t be late! Most tickets sell out very quickly.
4. Don’t forget you may have multiple opportunities! This is easy to miss when you’re focused on the minutiae of travel logistics, but some of the timed entry tickets aren’t as strict as they seem. For example:
   • Permits for Going-to-the-Sun Road in Glacier National Park are valid for three days. So if you’re trying to get a ticket good for entry on July 26th, you should start trying to reserve a last-minute ticket for July 24th. If those sell out, you can try again for the 25th. It doesn’t matter that you might not even be in Montana on the 24th or 25th – it’s a three-day ticket, so don’t get fixated on one particular day!
   • The timed-entry tickets for Rocky Mountain National Park are much more strict: they’re good for only a two-hour block, and you must enter the park and validate the permit in that window. But once the ticket is validated, it’s good for the ENTIRE day, even if you leave the park and re-enter later. So a 5 a.m. ticket for Bear Lake Road might seem unrealistic to your group, but if it’s the only option left, consider snagging it. Designate a morning person to drive the car into the park early to validate the ticket, and then immediately leave. They can pick up the rest of the group later, and you can return to the park on a leisurely schedule. (Though the park will be magical and much less crowded early in the day. If you can stand the pain, I’d highly recommend convincing everyone to forge out before dawn.)
5. Go! Make sure you’ve navigated to the sales page on Recreation.gov (or in the mobile app) well before the on-sale time, and be ready with the refresh button. In our experience, tickets often go up a few seconds (or sometimes minutes) before the designated time. Once they’re up, WORK FAST. Your primary goal is to add your permits to your shopping cart as quickly as you can. You’ll probably get some messages about the servers being busy. Keep trying! Remember that once you get tickets in your cart, you can relax – Recreation.gov gives you 15 minutes to complete the checkout process at that point, so you’ve got plenty of time to finalize the transaction and secure your permits.
6. Sold out? DON’T GIVE UP. This is the sorta-kinda-secret trick that few people realize. It’s simple and silly, but it could save your trip. Most tickets seem to sell out almost immediately. If you don’t get one in the first few minutes, don’t despair – WAIT. As other people go through the checkout process, they inevitably remove extra permits from their cart, cancel their orders, or simply abandon their shopping carts until they time out. Within the first seven to fifteen minutes after the on-sale time, you’ll start to see permits reappear on the page. Keep refreshing, watch the availability, and pounce! Snap up the first thing that’ll work for you. Competition won’t be quite so intense, since a lot of people will have simply given up by then. It’s amazing how well this strategy has worked for us: we thought we’d been muscled-out several times, but we’ve snagged Zion shuttle tickets AND a permit for Going-to-the-Sun Road simply by being patient.

It’s worth pointing out that this last trick won’t work for every activity that sells last-minute tickets on Recreation.gov. For example, day-before permits to hike Angel’s Landing in Zion National Park are being distributed via a lottery. As long as you get your lottery application submitted before 3 p.m. Mountain Time the day before you want to hike, you’ll have the same chance of getting a permit as everyone else who applies.

Also, while Recreation.gov has become the central hub for most public lands permits, it isn’t always how to get last-minute tickets. For instance, if you want to hike Coyote Buttes North in the Paria Canyon/Vermillion Cliffs Wilderness – a popular spot also called The Wave – you have to enter a lottery at least four months in advance. If you miss that deadline (or just don’t get selected), the only way to enter the last-minute lottery is to show up in-person at the gym in Kanab, Utah, the day before you want to go. We entered the lottery this way twice last spring. It didn’t work out, but we did get to see some other amazing places nearby.

One final tip: remember that even if you don’t get a permit, you may have options. For instance, Glacier National Park only requires a timed entry permit for Going-to-the-Sun Road between 6 a.m. and 4 p.m. If you can’t get a permit, consider arranging your schedule so your crew can enter the park before then. It can be a bit painful if your group has a night owl, but early-risers are usually rewarded with fewer crowds and gorgeous sunrises.

If you can be flexible and creative, you’ll have an amazing time seeing some of America’s best public lands.