Crowd control
Yes, parks are overrun, but solitude is still possible off the beaten path

A common complaint among my friends is that there are too many people who like to do the same outdoor activities that we do, and the places we visit are crowded. 

This is true, in a way. Oregon, where I live, often feels like it’s crawling with Subaru-driving, mountain bike-toting, dusty modern-day hippies in Chacos (or nowadays, Bedrock sandals), who all flock to the same places: central Oregon’s Smith Rock State Park for rock climbing, the Columbia River Gorge for trail runs to breathtaking waterfalls, or the coast to park their second cars (a live-in van) at ocean view campsites for the weekend. Reservations for these places are filled months in advance and you can forget about parking if you arrive anywhere later than 8 a.m.

Claire Carlson

I experienced a new level of these crowds in Montana’s Glacier National Park last month. I spent four days on the west side of the park camped at the mouth of Going-to-the-Sun Road, and even that proximity wasn’t enough to beat the traffic that forms early in the morning at iconic locations like Avalanche Lake and Logan Pass.

This was the second time I’d visited the park, but the first time I was there when the entirety of Going-to-the-Sun Road was open (snow keeps parts of it closed until late June most years). And I wasn’t the only one who wanted to see all that it had to offer.

On our first full day, we drove toward Logan Pass, one of the most crowded places in the park, thinking there’d be parking spots open mid-afternoon. Instead, the pullouts a mile below Logan Pass were filled, and the lot itself was completely packed. Cars idled in lanes waiting for parked cars to leave, and we quickly exited once we realized the stress of fighting for parking was not worth our sanity.

The National Park Service has implemented a vehicle permitting system for the west side of Going-to-the-Sun Road from 6 a.m.-3 p.m., May 24-Sept. 8, to abate some of the traffic. But, this means you either purchase a permit six months in advance or log into recreation.gov at 7 p.m. the night before to purchase the thousand-some tickets they keep available for last-minute reservations, $2 per permit. This only works if you have data or an internet connection to get on the website, and once you’re there, you have to refresh several times because of “heavy user traffic” before you can get one of the permits. 

Yosemite, Rocky Mountain and Zion national parks are just a few others that also permit sections of roads to mitigate the hell that is driving through a popular national park in the middle of summer. Even Multnomah Falls in the Columbia River Gorge – not a national park but a national scenic area – requires timed use permits in the summer because of visitor volume. 

You can take a shuttle in these areas, but the problem I discovered was convincing my travel companions to use them. These shuttles can be crowded and run late – no excuse not to use them, but I understand why people like their own vehicles.

It’s an objectively good thing that people want to spend time outside: one 2021 study showed time spent in nature leads to “increased perceived value for connectedness to nature and, subsequently, greater pro-environmental attitudes and behaviors.” 

To speak anecdotally, the time in my own life that I’ve spent outdoors absolutely influenced my concern for the environment and desire to protect it. The majority of my “Oh shit, this is why I’m alive” moments have happened outside, staring at a gurgling spring or spotting the Milky Way on a dark, clear night. Even the less obviously awesome moments – the time in a city park I watched a crow protect its nest by swooping at the head of every pedestrian who dared walk by, or the sunflowers I spotted in an otherwise barren alleyway – have been reminders of my love of the outdoors. The wonders of national parks take this awe a step further.

The “grandeur of the American West” is what inspired artists and scientists to urge Congress to create a national park system to preserve these glorious places, according to National Park Service archives. The artist George Catlin, who is most famous for his portraits of Native Americans, was one of the first people to suggest the idea. In 1872, the first national park – Yellowstone – was established. 

Since then, a total of 63 national parks have been designated, and with them has come lots of visitation. 

In 2023, the National Park Service reported 325.5 million recreation visits, a 4% increase from 2022. Of those millions of visits, 28% were to national parks. This makes sense – national parks have name recognition, and they’re stunning. Of course people want to visit them. 

As Ojibwe author David Treuer wrote for The Atlantic in 2021, “parks, as they’ve existed for 149 years, have done a decent job of preserving the past. But it’s not clear that today’s model of care and custodianship best meets the needs of the land, Native people or the general public. Nor is it clear that the current system will adequately ensure the parks’ future.”

The problem I’ve experienced in national parks is that while there are a lot of people, it’s the number of cars idling on narrow roads and the treatment of these places as items on a bucket list that make the whole experience feel icky and extractive. Treuer argues that giving national park land back to tribes would improve their management, while still guaranteeing access to all who want to visit. I’m not sure how this would fix the traffic problem, but maybe it’s a start. 

Another possibility is encouraging dispersion. Glacier National Park is massive, consisting of about one million mostly roadless acres. We hiked to Otokomi Lake on the east side of the park and saw probably 20 people total during the 10-mile hike. Even though not as popular, it was still beautiful: the trail followed Rose Creek across rocky mountain sides and wildflower-filled meadows. The trick to beat the crowds that day, it seemed, was to just keep walking. 

Finding the places that are off the beaten path (and this might mean getting comfortable with an honest-to-god physical map) could be the solution for some. But I know that not everyone can hike 10 miles to find fewer people. 

And, visiting a park’s most popular places is often worth it: Sunday morning, we woke up at 5:15 a.m. to make it to Logan Pass by 6 a.m., and it was one of the most spectacular places I’ve ever visited. A mountain goat with half its winter coat still hanging on walked no more than 15 feet away, gazing at us with what felt like all the knowledge in the universe inside its brown eyes. 

I don’t think there’s such a thing as too many people because in the outdoors, it’s pretty easy to spread out. But I do think there’s such a thing as overcrowding in one particular place, and our cars make it really easy to do this. Parts of national parks have become overcrowded. Maybe we need to remember that those aren’t the only beautiful places to visit. 

Just a few days before visiting Glacier, I was in Missoula, Mon., where I used to live. The best part of this town is its proximity to the outdoors, a reality that anyone who’s lived in a small city or town probably knows well. 

One night after work, I drove just 15 minutes to a fairly popular hiking spot in Rattlesnake National Recreation Area. I walked about 1 mile before reaching a small beach where the creek’s water was clearer than I’ve ever seen it and swallows darted into nests built into a rocky overhang. This was the perfect place to be, and no one was there. 

Claire Carlson is a reporting fellow at The Daily Yonder. She lives in Portland, Ore.