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Arches National Park has announced that its timed-entry program will return in 2025, but now it’s more convenient for summertime visitors. Initially, the program—where visitors had to acquire an entry permit with a specific time slot to enter the park—ran from spring to fall. However, people trying to visit Arches between July 7 and August 27, 2025, won’t need a timed-entry pass. The park won’t enforce the ticketing system then because visitation generally slows down in the hot summer months, and there is less need to mitigate traffic.
Arches first implemented a timed-entry reservation in 2022, after a decade of increased visitation that reached an all-time high in 2021. Between 2011 and 2021, crowds skyrocketed over 73 percent, from just over 1 million to over 1.8 million visitors annually. Officials found that visitation was highest during certain hours, which caused lines and excessive traffic within the park. This prompted the timed-entry program to even out traffic spikes and distribute traffic flow more evenly throughout the day.
Over the past three years, the park has undergone several time entry program adaptations to improve the visitor experience. The changes to the 2025 program aim to balance the visitor experience with minimizing park damage and congestion. Last year, a Utah State University study showed that 84 percent of respondents supported a reservation system within the park, and more than half of participants stated that the program improved the quality of their visitation experience.
Iree Wheeler, a PhD student at Utah State, told the National Parks Conservation Association that “this study shows that many visitors to Arches National Park had a positive experience with the pilot timed-entry system.” She added that “congestion and crowding were alleviated, and most visitors prefer a reservation system for future trips to Arches National Park. Like any new program there are areas for refinement over time, including increased information distribution to raise awareness for the requirements.”
2025 is also likely the final pilot year for the program. Next year’s park visitors between April 1 and July 6 and August 28 and October 31 will need both a timed-entry ticket and a park pass. Like in past years, visitors who didn’t snag a ticket can still enter before 7 a.m. or after 4 p.m., as long as they still have a park pass. Timed-entry permits are not required for those who are camping within the park or have a special use permit.
At the same time that Arches continues to evaluate the future of the timed-entry program, Rocky Mountain and Glacier National Parks are following suit. Next year, Glacier will require timed-entry reservations from June 13 to September 28, and Rocky Mountain will begin its program on May 23 and end on October 20. You can make reservations on Recreation.gov.
Do you have thoughts on the ticketing system? Make them heard. Through November 23, 2024, Arches will accept public comments about its Visitor Access and Experience/Environmental Assessment, which works on long-term strategies to fix persistent in-park traffic issues.
From 2024