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Glacier National Park High Route Permit
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Home › Forums › General Forums › General Lightweight Backpacking Discussion › Glacier National Park High Route Permit
- This topic has 4 replies, 4 voices, and was last updated 5 years, 10 months ago by John E.
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May 11, 2018 at 7:32 pm #3534853
I won’t be making it to Glacier this year, but I was looking for details on how to get a permit so that you can camp outside of camp areas while attempting a high route. The information is very obscure on this topic, but from what I have gathered you need to get a multiple day climbing permit that allows you to camp outside of campgrounds in more remote areas. Is this accurate? I have even seen it posted that you might even need to do it in person at the appropriate locations. Does anyone have any more detailed instructions on what to do?
May 12, 2018 at 3:43 pm #3535046Have you already talked to Park personnel about what you want to do? What did they say? Sometimes we get in the habit of throwing up our hands in frustration if the agency web site isn’t fully informative or clear. I don’t know the answer to your question, not ever having attempted such a trip in Glacier, but I have had plenty of luck, for various destinations, calling the Park/Forest/whatever the jurisdiction is/ Wilderness Permit Office and just going over it. Sometimes it helps to call a couple of different times with followup questions or to have the conversation with more than one person if the procedure for the desired plan is tricky. Then, armed with what the staff can tell you, it is easier to formulate specific questions for the hiking community. If there is a discussion group (yahoo group, facebook group, freestanding forum) specific to your destination, they are likely to be the most informative.
Also for a lot of places, from my experience and from others’ reports, working it out in person when you get to your destination (after arming yourself with as much advance information as possible and a clear plan), can work best of all and can produce options you didn’t even think of. The Permit Office people get much satisfaction from making it happen for you.
Hope you have a great trip!
May 12, 2018 at 4:28 pm #3535053You haven’t mentioned what your intended off trail route might be, but the Nyack area in the SE of the Park does allow one to set up camp wherever he/she chooses. There are also some rather common campsites too, but they don’t need to be reserved.
May 20, 2018 at 2:00 pm #3536816Sounds like you read Skurka’s writeup of our little trip a few years ago.
Glacier gives out “undesignated” permits for areas without official backcountry campgrounds, largely to facilitate peak bagging but also for alpine traverses. They don’t give these out via advance reservation, and generally try to hand them out such that multiple parties in the same off-trail area won’t see each other, or at least will be camping miles apart. Glacier gets a lot of newbie backpackers, so if you ask for an undesignated night or two as part of a route expect some pointed questions about your route, where exactly you’ll be camping, and so forth. If you’re an experienced backpacker who can articulate a good plan for your route and managing conditions you should not have a problem getting a permit (so long as someone else isn’t there already).
Alpine terrain in Glacier has a lot of relief, and subalpine terrain gets into thick brush quickly. Andy was impressed with the complexity of the route finding relative to Colorado or the Sierra. His observation that it has more in common with the Grand Canyon has a lot of truth.
May 21, 2018 at 7:10 pm #3537204David,
Yes, I believe it was Skurka’s write up :). Thanks for the additional info!
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