Do you want to go to Arches National Park next year? You’re going to need a reservation for visits from April until October. Arches National Park announced last week that from April 3rd to October 3, 2022, a reservation system will be the only way to enter the park is through a permit system. According to NPR, this follows a 66% increase in visitors from 2009 to 2019, which has led to overwhelmed local communities.
Here’s how it’s going to work: The first tickets go on sale on January 3, 2022, at 8 am Mountain Time. Tickets will be for time slots between 6 am to 5 pm. Guests will have to enter within an hour of when their time ticket says they can enter. Most tickets will be released three months in advance before guests planned visit. A small number of tickets will be released the day before at 6 pm Mountain Time. Once inside the gates, guests can stay as long as they like. 2700 vehicles will be allowed inside the park during the day. Once this initial period ends, the program will be evaluated if this will become the permanent solution.
It sounds a bit of a bummer at first, but as someone who’s visited the park, it makes a lot of sense. When I visited in mid-October 2019, the place was packed. There’s only one entrance for cars, so the traffic fills up pretty easily. I waited probably thirty minutes to pay and get inside the national park. Was it worth it? Obviously, the park is a bucket list destination. But changes clearly need to be made. The park joins places like Acadia, Glacier National Park, Haleakala National Park, Rocky Mountain National Park, Yosemite, and Zion National Park that have introduced reservations over the last couple of years. Full details via Arches social media post on Friday are below.
Image Credits: Arches National Park, Unsplash
