Reservations are no longer required to enter Mount Rainier National Park.
Now, after the park’s first summer testing a timed reservation system, it wants to hear from visitors about how it went.
Those who used the reservation system can submit public comments on the experience before Sept. 15.
The public comments and reservation data will be evaluated by park officials to determine if the reservation system should continue in the future, park planner Teri Tucker said. An update to the park management plan is expected later this year.
“This opportunity to hear from the public is a key piece of information to help that process,” Tucker said.
The park began using timed entry reservations during peak visiting hours in May, an attempt to limit overcrowding and traffic and improve safety.
Until Monday, those who entered the Nisqually, Stevens Canyon and White River entrances between 7 a.m. and 3 p.m. needed to make online or phone reservations ahead of time.
The goal of the timed entry system was to distribute visitors more evenly throughout the day following a boom in visitation in recent years at the park. Visitation grew from 1.1 million in 2013 to nearly 1.7 million in 2023, according to the National Park Service. Most of those visits occurred between July and September.
A timed reservation system was on a slate of possible solutions discussed last year, including providing shuttle vehicles to free up parking and prevent traffic backups.
Other parks, including Arches National Park in Utah, Glacier National Park in Montana and Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado, have also used reservation systems at their most popular entrances.
As of Wednesday, Tucker said the park did not have any data on the number of reservations that were used this summer and when they were needed the most.
“Visitation patterns really varied a lot,” Tucker said. “Weather is always a factor, and we saw a lot of different conditions.”
According to data from the National Park Service, Mount Rainier National Park saw more than 531,000 total visitors in the first half of this year. That data is not finalized and does not include the popular months of July or August.
Slightly more visitors came to the park in June of this year than last year with 347,712 visits compared to last June’s 304,566. Most of those are non-overnight recreation visitors.
To submit public comments on Mount Rainier’s reservation system, visit parkplanning.nps.gov/MountRainier2024 by 11:59 p.m. on Sept. 15.
“We are eager to learn what visitors think of the pilot timed entry system we are testing out this summer,” park superintendent Greg Dudgeon said in a statement. “We want to hear how the pilot did or did not work for people before we finalize our long-term visitor use management plan for the Nisqually to Paradise Corridor at Mount Rainier National Park.”
