[Senate Hearing 117-446]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]







                                                        S. Hrg. 117-446

                A REVIEW OF THE IMPACTS OF OVERCROWDING
                     IN OUR NATIONAL PARKS ON PARK
                   RESOURCES AND VISITOR EXPERIENCES,
                     AND CONSIDERATION OF STRATEGIC
                  APPROACHES TO VISITOR USE MANAGEMENT

=======================================================================

                                HEARING

                               BEFORE THE

                            SUBCOMMITTEE ON 
                             NATIONAL PARKS

                                 OF THE

                              COMMITTEE ON
                      ENERGY AND NATURAL RESOURCES
                          UNITED STATES SENATE

                    ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEENTH CONGRESS

                             FIRST SESSION

                               __________

                             JULY 28, 2021

                               __________




[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]





                       Printed for the use of the
               Committee on Energy and Natural Resources

        Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.govinfo.gov  
                             _________
                              
                 U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
                 
45-249                   WASHINGTON : 2023
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
               COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND NATURAL RESOURCES

                JOE MANCHIN III, West Virginia, Chairman
RON WYDEN, Oregon                    JOHN BARRASSO, Wyoming
MARIA CANTWELL, Washington           JAMES E. RISCH, Idaho
BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont             MIKE LEE, Utah
MARTIN HEINRICH, New Mexico          STEVE DAINES, Montana
MAZIE K. HIRONO, Hawaii              LISA MURKOWSKI, Alaska
ANGUS S. KING, JR., Maine            JOHN HOEVEN, North Dakota
CATHERINE CORTEZ MASTO, Nevada       JAMES LANKFORD, Oklahoma
MARK KELLY, Arizona                  BILL CASSIDY, Louisiana
JOHN W. HICKENLOOPER, Colorado       CINDY HYDE-SMITH, Mississippi
                                     ROGER MARSHALL, Kansas
                                 ------                                

                     Subcommittee on National Parks

                      ANGUS S. KING, JR., Chairman

BERNARD SANDERS                      STEVE DAINES
MARTIN HEINRICH                      MIKE LEE
MAZIE K. HIRONO                      LISA MURKOWSKI
MARK KELLY                           JOHN HOEVEN
                                     JAMES LANKFORD

                      Renae Black, Staff Director
                      Sam E. Fowler, Chief Counsel
                     David Brooks, General Counsel
             Richard M. Russell, Republican Staff Director
              Matthew H. Leggett, Republican Chief Counsel
        John Tanner, Republican Deputy Staff Director for Lands  
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
                            C O N T E N T S

                              ----------                              

                           OPENING STATEMENTS

                                                                   Page
King, Jr., Hon. Angus S., Subcommittee Chairman and a U.S. 
  Senator from Maine.............................................     1
Daines, Hon. Steve, Subcommittee Ranking Member and a U.S. 
  Senator from Montana...........................................     4

                               WITNESSES

Reynolds, Michael T., Regional Director, Interior Regions 6, 7, 
  and 8, National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior 
  (Accompanied by Kevin Schneider, Superintendent, Acadia 
  National Park).................................................    12
Brengel, Kristen, Senior Vice President, Government Affairs, 
  National Parks Conservation Association........................    18
Gartland, Kevin O., Executive Director, Whitefish, Montana 
  Chamber of Commerce............................................    30

          ALPHABETICAL LISTING AND APPENDIX MATERIAL SUBMITTED

Brengel, Kristen:
    Opening Statement............................................    18
    Written Testimony............................................    20
Daines, Hon. Steve:
    Opening Statement............................................     4
    Chart depicting growth in visitation at national parks from 
      1980 to 2019...............................................     6
    Chart entitled ``Economic Contributions to the Montana 
      Economy''..................................................     8
Gartland, Kevin O.:
    Opening Statement............................................    30
    Written Testimony............................................    33
    Responses to Questions for the Record........................    68
Grand County (UT) Commission and Moab City Council:
    Letter for the Record........................................    71
Kelly, Hon. Mark:
    Letter for the Record from the Hon. William Diak, Mayor of 
      the City of Page (AZ)......................................    47
King, Jr., Hon. Angus S.:
    Opening Statement............................................     1
    Chart representing changes in visitation and staff levels at 
      Yellowstone National Park from 2000 to 2016................     3
    Photograph of parking at Yosemite National Park..............    10
    Photograph of parking at Cadillac Mountain...................    11
Outdoor Recreation Roundtable (ORR):
    Letter for the Record........................................    73
Recreational Equipment, Inc. (REI Co-op):
    Statement for the Record.....................................    76
Reynolds, Michael T.:
    Opening Statement............................................    12
    Written Testimony............................................    14
    Responses to Questions for the Record........................    54

 
                    A REVIEW OF THE IMPACTS OF OVERCROWDING 
                      IN OUR NATIONAL PARKS ON PARK 
                      RESOURCES AND VISITOR EXPERIENCES, 
                      AND CONSIDERATION OF STRATEGIC 
                     APPROACHES TO VISITOR USE MANAGEMENT 

                              ----------                              


                        WEDNESDAY, JULY 28, 2021

                               U.S. Senate,
                    Subcommittee on National Parks,
                 Committee on Energy and Natural Resources,
                                                    Washington, DC.
    The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:01 a.m. in 
Room SD-366, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Angus S. 
King, Jr., Chairman of the Subcommittee presiding.

         OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. ANGUS S. KING, JR., 
                    U.S. SENATOR FROM MAINE

    Senator King. The Subcommittee will come to order. Today's 
hearing is for the Subcommittee to review the impacts of 
overcrowding in our national parks on park resources and 
visitor experiences, and to consider strategic approaches to 
visitor use management.
    I would like to say at the outset that I think neither my 
co-chair nor myself have a ready-made set of solutions or 
proposed legislation. This is truly a hearing to listen and 
learn and discuss options in an open and free way, to talk 
about not only the situation today, but where we will be in 
five or ten years. So we are talking strategically, not 
necessarily tactically.
    As vaccine rates continue to rise across the country, 
Americans who have been stuck inside for a year look for 
outdoor recreation. We are having a record-breaking year at 
many of our national parks. Even as international visitation is 
down due to ongoing COVID-19 concerns, visitation numbers at 
our most iconic parks--like Glacier, Acadia, and Yosemite--are 
already at all-time highs.
    It is great to see so many Americans are taking advantage 
of these parks. That is, after all, why we protect these lands 
in the first place. However, at the same time, we must 
recognize that overcrowding in the parks itself can degrade the 
natural resources and wildlife that these units are designed to 
protect. We can, accidentally, love our parks to death.
    Overcrowding can also significantly harm the visitor 
experience and strain the resources of gateway communities, 
souring what should be a once in a lifetime vacation. Watching 
the sunrise from the top of the Cadillac Mountain is a 
wonderful experience. Staring at the tail lights of the car in 
front of you as you are trying to get up the mountain and find 
a parking place--not so much.
    We know there are multiple ways to address these issues and 
we must consider the full range. For example, we can encourage 
visitation to lesser-known parks. Not all park units have seen 
the same astronomical growth that is impacting our better-known 
parks. Chairman Daines examined this in a field hearing several 
years ago. We should explore opportunities to highlight these 
lesser-known jewels, including reviewing the National Park 
Service's restrictions on advertising.
    Timed tickets and reservation systems are also options that 
are increasingly being considered and put into place, if not 
for entire parks, at least at some of the most crowded sites 
within parks. Many national park units have had de facto 
reservation systems for years--the Statue of Liberty, for 
example.
    These systems can help protect public lands and support 
high-quality visitor experiences, but they also present 
challenges that we must consider. It is important to ensure 
that reservation systems do not lock out visitors. America's 
national parks are for everyone and should remain as accessible 
as possible to all.
    Staffing is also an issue that should be examined, as 
staffing at the national parks has not kept pace with the 
growth in visitors. More visitors have stretched our rangers 
and staff thin and made park operations more challenging on a 
day-to-day basis. This chart is a graphic representation of 
exactly what I just noted.
    [The chart mentioned by Senator King follows:]

[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
    
    Senator King. The green mountain is the visitation at 
Yellowstone. The red dotted line is staff levels. As you can 
see, the staff levels are relatively fixed and the visitation 
has almost doubled, or more than doubled. So this is an 
indication of the problem of the static staff versus the 
astronomical growth in visitation.
    Through the Great American Outdoors Act, this Committee has 
done significant work to ensure that the capital facility 
maintenance backlog is being addressed. We may now need to turn 
our attention to the operations side of the ledger.
    Vehicle limitations are also something that must be 
considered. Often we talk about too many people, but actually 
we are talking about too many cars. There are alternatives for 
us to look at. For example, many years ago, one of my sons and 
I had the opportunity to visit the Matterhorn in Zermatt, 
Switzerland, where the gateway community is entirely free of 
private automobiles. They only have golf carts and horse-drawn 
carts. Everyone that goes to the town gets there via a train 
from a station about 20 miles away, where there is a very large 
parking lot. So there are no automobiles in the town 
whatsoever, and it works.
    Additional investments in transit options, both through 
free visitor shuttles and private partners, could allow us to 
continue growing the number of people in parks while limiting 
vehicle traffic.
    Today's conversation will explore these opportunities and 
more. There are no obvious answers to some of these challenges. 
There is no one single solution that will fit all the 
situations in our parks. I know there is a path forward that we 
can build by collaboration and input from the local level, and 
it is my hope that our conversation today is a step in that 
direction.
    I would now like to recognize Senator Daines for his 
opening comments.

          OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR STEVE DAINES, 
                   U.S. SENATOR FROM MONTANA

    Senator Daines. Chairman King, thank you. I first want to 
welcome a Montanan, who is part of this hearing today, Mr. 
Gartland, who is joining us from Whitefish, Montana. I have a 
lot of memories as a kid spending time in Whitefish. My cousins 
built the Viking Lodge there that got replaced by the Whitefish 
Lodge, and my Chief of Staff is a proud graduate of Whitefish 
High School. So we are glad to have Mr. Gartland here. He is 
the Executive Director of the Whitefish Chamber of Commerce. He 
is a strong voice for his community and Glacier National Park, 
as Whitefish is one of the key gateway communities for Glacier 
National Park.
    The beauty and the history of our national parks truly set 
us apart from the rest of the world. Glacier National Park is 
one of the crown jewels of the park system and a major 
attraction for tourists who come from around the world and who 
support thousands of jobs and boost the economy for these local 
communities.
    Whitefish and other gateway communities see firsthand the 
benefits of our national parks, and I am excited to hear from 
Mr. Gartland on how the Park Service and our local communities 
are working together to address the challenges and benefits of 
increased visitation to our parks.
    I echo Chairman King's remarks that we are here to learn, 
to hear from you all around the course that we ought to set 
going forward as we address this challenge of increased 
visitation levels to our national parks. Today's hearing will 
examine the effects of increased visitation to many of our 
national parks and how this is affecting the visitor 
experience, the employees--and Chairman King, I was struck by 
that chart you showed of Yellowstone National Park. I thought 
that was a side view of the Grand Tetons, that green chart, but 
that was the visitation levels there.
    [Laughter.]
    And we saw the very flat line there on employee levels.
    I grew up in the shadow of Yellowstone National Park, as a 
Bozeman native. I have personally witnessed the increase in 
visitation and how that affects our local communities and the 
park itself.
    This chart behind me shows the growth in visitation.
    [The chart mentioned by Senator Daines follows:]

[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
    
    Senator Daines. The yellow bar up there is 1980. As you can 
see the baseline, Yellowstone National Park had just over two 
million visitors in 1980. Glacier National Park had about 1.5 
million. Look at what has happened now in 2019. We took that 
snapshot because 2020, with COVID, probably is--we will put 
that as an asterisk and we are looking at 2021 now, and we will 
likely break these record numbers. But we saw doubling over the 
course of 1980 to 2019.
    The other thing I should note is in 1980, that is when I 
graduated from Bozeman High School, visitation numbers there 
have doubled since then with now over four million visitors to 
Yellowstone National Park. Similarly, Glacier National Park 
numbers were 1.5 million in 1980 and now they are three 
million.
    However, this is not the case for all of our national parks 
in Montana. We have these smaller gems--and gems is still even 
an understatement--describing the amazing beauty and interest 
of these national parks like Grant-Kohrs Ranch, where I held a 
field hearing a few years ago. The Big Hole Battlefield, the 
Bighorn Canyon Recreation Area--these have seen consistent 
growth, but not nearly to the levels that we have seen at the 
more well-known parks.
    I think one of the ways we might be able to better address 
the increased visitation is looking for ways to encourage folks 
to spend a day at some of these lesser-visited parks. This will 
not only relieve congestion and wear-and-tear at our larger 
parks, but it will also, importantly, boost the local economies 
by these smaller parks.
    I also believe that we should be looking at innovative ways 
to connect with visitors to help spread out visitation within 
the parks. As many of you know, I have a tech background and 
was part of growing a cloud computing business in my hometown 
of Bozeman. I believe there are innovative solutions out there 
that the private sector is using that the Park Service might 
look at adapting and using to relieve pressure points on our 
parks.
    I also want to explore the Park Service's hiring process. 
Looking at the Chairman's chart again, with Yellowstone, 
clearly we need to find ways to get additional employees to 
help with the increased demand in visitation to these parks. 
And we want to look at how quickly they are responding to hire 
qualified individuals to address the issues we are talking 
about today, because employer retention and morale is key to 
addressing increased visitation.
    Finally, I want to explore more about Glacier National 
Park's implementation of a ticket entry system. I have heard a 
lot about this from Montanans. I look forward to hearing more 
from Mr. Gartland and the Park Service and how that program's 
going.
    Before I close out though, I want to ensure that we not 
only are looking at the challenges of increased visitation but 
also the positive impacts of this increased visitation, and 
that is the economic numbers. Because with increased visitation 
come increased jobs and economic impact for local communities. 
In fact, according to the National Park Service, in 2019 park 
visitors supported nearly 10,000 jobs in Montana, spent an 
estimated $640 million in gateway communities, and contributed 
nearly $900 million in economic output to Montana. If you look 
at that chart behind me, you can see that is a 70 percent 
increase in economic impact since 2012.
    [The chart mentioned by Senator Daines follows:]

[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

    Senator Daines. Based on what I have heard from my Montana 
superintendents, we will see major increases in the economic 
impact of our national parks when we tally up what is going on 
in 2021. And you know, this is a good thing. While there are 
challenges we need to look at because of increased visitation, 
we also need to ensure we are not closing off our parks to the 
world and that we continue to grow the visitation, the jobs, 
and the economic benefits they provide.
    With that, Mr. Chairman, I turn it back to you. I look 
forward to a robust discussion and to testimony from our 
excellent witnesses.
    Senator King. Thank you, Senator Daines. Let's put up the 
pictures of Yosemite and Acadia to emphasize what we are 
talking about. This is Yosemite.
    [The picture of parking at Yosemite follows:]

[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
    
    Senator King. Yosemite is one of the most spectacular 
places in the world, but I can guarantee the people in that 
traffic jam were not enjoying it at that particular moment.
    The other is Cadillac Mountain in Acadia National Park in 
Maine--the same issue.
    [The picture of parking at Cadillac Mountain follows:]

[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
    
    Senator King. You see the automobiles. People are losing 
their tempers because they cannot find a parking place. Buses 
cannot turn around. It is a very difficult situation. And 
again, the tension and the paradox that we have is, we want 
visitation to our national parks, but we do not want the 
visitation itself to impair the experience of the national 
parks, or the park itself.
    Our witnesses today are Mr. Michael Reynolds--he is 
currently the National Parks Regional Director for Regions 6, 
7, and 8, where he oversees 89 parks in nine states. 
Previously, he was Superintendent at Yosemite. Were you in that 
traffic jam?--yes, sir. And served as Acting Director for the 
entire National Park Service.
    Kevin Schneider is also with us via Zoom. He is the 
Superintendent at Acadia National Park, and will be available 
to us for questions.
    Ms. Kristen Brengel is the Senior Vice President of the 
National Parks Conservation Association, where she leads the 
Association's advocacy on public lands conservation, natural 
and cultural resource issues, and park funding.
    Mr. Kevin Gartland, as Senator Daines mentioned, is the 
Executive Director of the Whitefish Chamber of Commerce, where 
he represents a gateway community which, of course, gateway 
communities are a major part of the park experience and 
important beneficiaries of the economic development aspects of 
the national park program nationwide.
    Mr. Reynolds, you are recognized to provide us an opening 
statement. Thank you.

    OPENING STATEMENT OF MR. MICHAEL T. REYNOLDS, REGIONAL 
DIRECTOR, INTERIOR REGIONS 6, 7, and 8, NATIONAL PARK SERVICE, 
                U.S. DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR

    Mr. Reynolds. Thank you, Chairman King, thank you very 
much. Ranking Member Daines and members of the Subcommittee, 
thank you for the opportunity to discuss the impacts of 
overcrowding in our national parks on park resources and the 
visitor experience, and consider strategic approaches to 
visitor use management.
    I'm joined remotely by Kevin Schneider, the Superintendent 
of Acadia National Park, who will be available to answer 
questions about operations at Acadia.
    This past year has reminded us how important national parks 
and public lands are to our well-being, providing us close-to-
home and destination-based outdoor opportunities. National 
parks are also places for people to connect with the 
inspirational wonders of nature and the stories that bond us to 
the meaningful places of this nation.
    The National Park Service wants every visitor to have a 
great park experience. We seek ways to support more diverse, 
accessible, and inclusive experiences that are compatible with 
the protection of the resources. Ensuring visitors have 
enjoyable experiences, however, is becoming increasingly 
challenging in our most popular parks.
    There are 423 parks in the National Park System 
encompassing over 85 million acres across our nation, but 
visitation trends among them vary greatly. About half of all 
our recreation visits are occurring at only the top 23 most 
visited parks, with significant congestion conditions 
concentrated in the most popular 12 to 15 destination parks. 
Crowding conditions tend to happen at hotspots and where 
entries and exits are limited. Crowding can also be felt at the 
most popular scenic viewpoints that are within one-quarter mile 
of a parking lot.
    Congestion occurs when demand to access a site, parking 
area, entrance station, or roadway exceeds capacity. As a 
result, the National Park Service is employing a range of 
strategies to provide a welcoming environment while ensuring 
protection of resources. In addition to using pilot projects 
and flexible planning tools to test ideas, we are conducting 
robust public and stakeholder engagement before committing to 
long-term implementation.
    Parks are also working with local and regional tourism 
entities to develop strategies for promoting sustainable 
tourism. To address vehicular congestion, the National Park 
Service has also invested in shuttles and multi-use paths where 
biking and walking are also encouraged.
    Timed-entry systems are now in place at several parks. Muir 
Woods National Monument has used a successful concession-run 
timed-entry reservation system since the beginning of 2018. 
Acadia National Park implemented a vehicle reservation system, 
as approved in a May 2019 Transportation Plan at Cadillac 
Summit Road during the peak season. This system is enhanced by 
other visitor services, including by expanding the Island 
Explorer transit service and commercial tours. Glacier, Rocky, 
and Yosemite National Parks have all implemented timed-entry 
systems as pilot projects with each addressing a specific park-
level issue.
    With the ticketed entry system, Glacier National Park 
estimates that the park has been able to adequately serve and 
support the same daily visitation on Going-to-the-Sun Corridor, 
even with decreased staff members and reduced visitor services.
    Rocky Mountain National Park is currently piloting a timed-
entry system for park-wide access, with varying opportunities 
to other park destinations. Timed entry has spread, 
successfully, visitation throughout the day, decreased 
congestion, and reduced queuing at the entrance stations and 
parking lots.
    The National Park Service is also working on several 
technological advances that will improve the visitor experience 
in parks through enhanced trip planning tools, including the 
new NPS mobile app and the Rec.gov improvements. In addition, 
the National Park Service's ``Plan Like a Park Ranger'' 
campaign supports visitors by advising them to have backup 
plans, know in advance where reservations are needed, and by 
encouraging people to explore the lesser-known parks.
    The National Park Service wants visitors to have an 
inspiring experience wherever they go in the National Park 
System. Given the iconic and finite nature of these highly 
valued places, the National Park Service is committed to 
collaborating with local communities, business, and non-profit 
partners to find solutions that improve the quality and 
diversity of visitor experiences, address congestion in a 
thoughtful way, and maintain the tremendous range of benefits 
the national parks provide.
    Chairman King, Ranking Member Daines, thank you again for 
the opportunity to appear before you today. I would be happy to 
answer your questions and, just to remind you, Superintendent 
Schneider would be happy to answer specific questions about 
what's going on in Acadia National Park. Thank you.
    [The prepared statement of Mr. Reynolds follows:]

[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
    
    Senator King. Thank you, Mr. Reynolds. Ms. Brengel.

OPENING STATEMENT OF KRISTEN BRENGEL, SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT OF 
  GOVERNMENT AFFAIRS, NATIONAL PARKS CONSERVATION ASSOCIATION

    Ms. Brengel. Chairman King, Ranking Member Daines, thank 
you for the invitation to discuss overcrowding within our 
popular national parks with the Subcommittee today. I am 
Kristen Brengel, Senior Vice President of Government Affairs at 
the National Parks Conservation Association.
    There is no greater testament to the success of the 
National Park System than the ongoing interest that visitors 
pay to the 423 sites. In 2019 alone, parks had 327 million 
visits. These visitors----
    Senator King. I would point out, Ms. Brengel, by the way, 
that is almost exactly the entire population of the United 
States.
    Ms. Brengel. That was in my testimony.
    Senator King. Oh, sorry.
    [Laughter.]
    Ms. Brengel. Yes, a lot of people. These visitors are 
evidence of the success of the Federal Government in protecting 
locations that are both valued by the public and deserving of 
national park designation. However, the growth in visitation is 
also posing one of the greatest challenges NPS has ever faced.
    In 2019, before the pandemic, overall visitation to the 
system was nearly 20 percent greater than it was in 2013. This 
visitation increase will likely continue into the future. For 
instance, Yellowstone National Park reported a 40 percent jump 
in visitation in April. Arches is so popular the park has to 
close the gate on a daily basis. Zion can have a four-hour wait 
to access popular trailheads.
    We are concerned for the natural and cultural resources 
that the Park Service is empowered to preserve--for instance, 
Rocky Mountain. Visitors are spreading out beyond existing 
trails, increasing wildlife disruption, especially with elk and 
moose. Arches and Canyonlands--there has been more vandalism, 
particularly defacing of indigenous rock imagery.
    Traffic gridlock, long lines for basic services, and 
crowding in the most popular attractions can result in 
unpleasant trips. Upticks in graffiti, litter, social trails, 
and improperly disposed of human waste are concerns in many 
parks. This undesirable and harmful behavior suggests 
unprepared visitors are recreating in parks and evidences a 
need for more interaction with park rangers to educate 
visitors.
    Some visitor use management strategies that Mike talked 
about and I'll expand on are permits and reservations--managing 
the number of visitors entering a park or part of a park at a 
given time of day or days of week via prearranged reservations 
on Recreation.gov; messaging and communication; encouraging 
pre-visit planning, which is really important; infrastructure 
and facilities--managing visitor movement or behavior by 
expanding or adjusting hardened facilities, like roads, trails, 
parking lots, visitor centers, and restrooms; and 
transportation--requiring bus or shuttle ridership, improving 
foot and bicycle traffic, and managing parking lots.
    None of these are new concepts. Many of these tools are 
used effectively already and some of the reservation systems 
that are in place right now, like Yosemite Valley--it's far 
less congested right now. Bear Lake at Rocky is easier to get 
around, and traffic is moving along better at Glacier. These 
tools need to be refined and adjusted based on the parks 
specifically that we're talking about.
    Other issues that we're concerned about and we hope we can 
address with the Committee are equity issues. We believe the 
Park Service needs to critically examine making parks more 
welcoming and relevant for black, indigenous, and people of 
color. In this regard, we think safety needs to be reviewed. 
Language and communication--right now, most of the 
communication in parks is offered only in English. And fees--
research suggests increasing user fees is not an effective 
strategy for addressing increased visitation and can actually 
pose a barrier that would disproportionally impact low-income 
populations.
    One area that we also think we should look at is 
collaboration. Close and innovative collaboration needs to take 
place between parks, future visitors of parks, current visitors 
of parks, local communities, philanthropic partners, and 
concessioners.
    Staffing--between 2011 and 2019, NPS lost 16 percent of its 
staff capacity. The result is that staff take on multiple 
collateral duties. It's not uncommon to find trail crews 
attending to busy restrooms or law enforcement helping with 
parking. It's a huge problem.
    Dispersing visitors--dispersal could happen either 
regionally or within a park unit itself. When visitors spread 
out along these locations, it could cause unintended 
consequences that we weren't prepared for. For instance, 
visitors who are encountering a temporary delay at Arches are 
making their way to Canyonlands. Now Canyonlands is very busy 
and is taking 30 minutes or more to get into. Shifting traffic 
and crowding is not improving the visitor experience in these 
parks.
    Search and rescue has also increased with the visitation 
increases. This has become a huge problem in so many parks, and 
I'm sure Mike could expand on this. Park visitors could access 
terrain that they're not equipped for, which adds to staffing 
and financial burdens in parks that we're trying to make sure 
are managed well.
    In conclusion, we appreciate the Committee's oversight on 
the impacts of overcrowding. I look forward to speaking with 
you more about it and hope that we can take a look at the 
impacts and the challenges with climate change, outdated 
infrastructure, and increased visitation as issues that we 
really need to address moving forward in Congress.
    [The prepared statement of Ms. Brengel follows:]

[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
    
    Senator King. Thank you very much. Now I would like to ask 
Mr. Kevin Gartland, the Executive Director of Whitefish Chamber 
of Commerce--Whitefish, Montana, I might add--and Mr. Gartland, 
we would like to hear from you about the impacts of this 
phenomenon in your region. Thank you.

OPENING STATEMENT OF MR. KEVIN O. GARTLAND, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, 
             WHITEFISH, MONTANA CHAMBER OF COMMERCE

    Mr. Gartland. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Subcommittee 
members. I do appreciate the opportunity to talk with you a 
little bit today about what is really becoming a very serious 
concern to us here.
    Glacier, for Northwestern Montana, specifically Whitefish 
and our gateway communities, really is the goose that lays the 
golden egg, and we treasure it, and we do a lot to protect it. 
Just for background, Whitefish is a mountain resort town 
located about 25 miles west of the western gate to Glacier 
National Park.
    Our organization represents about 500 small businesses in 
the gateway communities of West Glacier, Coram, Hungry Horse, 
Columbia Falls, and Whitefish. And as we are primarily a 
business organization, I will begin by telling you that 
business is booming this summer. I spoke with the leader of our 
local CDB yesterday. He tells me that hotel reservations in the 
month of June were up seven percent from 2019, which was our 
previous record-breaking year. And if you take a look at what's 
happening in the short-term rental market, there's probably 
double the number of units out there that there were two years 
ago and their occupancy rates are skyrocketing too. So I would 
estimate that occupancy in the valley during the first month 
our summer season was up by 15 to 20 percent. Passenger traffic 
at Glacier Park International Airport was up nearly 30 percent 
from 2019's all-time high during the month of June.
    So if anything, business is a little bit too good right 
now. There aren't enough workers to fill the jobs available, so 
business owners are leaving some money on the table this 
summer. Limited operations really are the catchwords of the 
day. Most everybody in the hospitality industry, and outside of 
the industry as well, is struggling to find employees, running 
on limited operations--75 to 80 percent of capacity. And that's 
anything from mom-and-pop restaurants to hotels, lodges, up to 
Whitefish Mountain Resort--our ski resort that has major 
summertime operations. There are a lot of reasons for that, but 
we're not here to talk about that exactly.
    Despite that, it's safe to say 2021 will be the busiest 
ever for tourism in our region and the busiest ever for Glacier 
National Park as well. That, of course, is nothing new. 
Visitation to Glacier has been setting all-time records for 
most of the ten years I've been here in town. In the world of 
business, that's a pretty good thing. You simply gear up 
production to meet the demand that you've got out there and 
everybody's happy. Unfortunately, in managing natural 
resources--in this case, a national park--it's not just the law 
of supply and demand that applies. There are also a myriad of 
other issues to consider, as you folks have already talked 
about, including the quality of the visitor experience and the 
carrying capacity of the land itself.
    In an effort to kind of manage the overcrowding we've seen 
recently in Glacier and maintain that visitor experience, the 
park this year instituted the ``Ticketed Entry Reservation 
System'' for the most popular area of the park, which is the 
Going-to-the-Sun Road corridor. Oddly enough, it's really the 
system itself this year that has been the worst part of the 
visitor experience in Glacier, at least for those that weren't 
able to get that $2 ticket.
    The fact that the new system was rolled out very late in 
the game, just a couple of months before the summer crush hit, 
caused a lot of confusion and frustration, not only among 
visitors who were attempting to purchase tickets but for 
employees of local businesses and folks like us at the visitor 
information center who have literally been getting hammered by 
tourists all summer long who've traveled thousands of miles. 
They've paid tens of thousands of dollars in hotel and airfare 
and rental car reservations, only to see their vacation ruined 
because they can't get that $2 ticket to see Glacier National 
Park.
    There are lots of experiences I could tell you about, but 
one businesswoman put it to me last Friday like this: She feels 
more like she's a therapist than a marketing director this 
year. She's really trying to help people work through that 
issue, and it's become a big deal.
    In terms of visitor experience, I think you really have to 
consider three different groups--visitors who are able to get a 
ticket; visitors who aren't; and then the residents of our 
area, the gateway communities, who live and work in this area 
365 days a year, in part because they want to be able to enjoy 
the park on a regular basis.
    By all accounts, the entry system has relieved a bit of the 
overcrowding we've seen in the last few years. That's a plus 
for those able to get into the park. It's still extremely 
difficult to find a parking space at major tourist attractions 
and trailheads. But it is possible to find pullouts and places 
to get out of your vehicle, take a short hike, have a picnic 
lunch, take some photos, and relax and enjoy the park.
    I was there on the 5th of July--don't ask me why, but I 
was--and we were able to find some parking spaces where we 
could get out and enjoy the park--not at Avalanche and not at 
Logan Pass. But throughout the park, it seems to be a little 
bit less congested during the peak daytime hours.
    You know, it's also a given that the Glacier experience is 
quite different than it was 10 or 20 years ago. It is very 
difficult to get off the beaten path this time of year in 
Glacier. The most popular trails are always crowded. The trail 
at Avalanche Lake is often described as a pack train of people 
moving up and down the mountain. Simply getting to the 
trailhead can be a bit harrowing. I talked to a local guide 
last week. He said, ``It's like the Indy 500 on Going-to-the-
Sun Road at 6:00 in the morning,'' as visitors come into to 
beat that 6:00 time restriction for the ticketed entry and 
really race to get up the highway to get to that favored 
destination as quickly as they can.
    Even so, I would say the majority of folks who are able to 
get into the park are having a good experience and better than 
those who are unable to do it and get that $2 ticket. But I 
will tell you again, trying to help folks manage their vacation 
has become the most difficult thing we've ever had to deal with 
in terms of dealing with our visitors.
    The third group of customers is locals--and I know my time 
is over, Mr. Chairman. I'll try to wrap things up pretty 
quickly here. Locals are feeling like they've been left out. 
These folks live and work here. They have park passes and 
they're competing with three million other people to get a 
limited number of daily tickets to get into the park when they 
can. I think something needs to be done about that.
    Overall, the business community is feeling the system needs 
some tweaking, but it is leading to a better experience for the 
visiting public. And in terms of alternatives, which we'll talk 
about, we don't want to see a return to unrestricted access, 
which we've had to this point. In 2018, 2019, and last year, 
there were times when we were at full capacity. The park could 
not carry anyone else and so the front gates were shut down for 
hours at a time--three, four hours. Traffic backed up into West 
Glacier onto Highway 2, and folks couldn't access those 
businesses. That actually did impact business. The way we've 
done it this year, folks are able to access those businesses in 
our gateway communities and I don't think they're seeing a 
negative impact from that.
    Public transportation--I'm sure we can talk about that a 
little bit.
    I would just kind of close by saying that business owners 
here in Whitefish and in northwestern Montana are like any 
others. They're here to make a profit, but they also have a 
very strong sense of ownership and stewardship for the park. 
They believe it should be protected and preserved, not 
exploited. Again, the phrase we hear is, ``We're loving the 
park to death.'' And whether you're doing that or you're 
killing the goose that laid the golden egg, we have to balance 
the good aspects of bringing more business to our community 
with, really, ruining the experience that we have in Glacier. 
And I think that's where we have the challenge moving forward 
for the next five to ten years.
    I would be happy to discuss anything you guys would like to 
discuss. Lots of issues out there. We appreciate the work of 
the Park Service and Superintendent Mow has tried to work with 
the business community over the years. One of the aspects of 
managing tourists is getting them to enjoy the area outside of 
the park as well. We've done a lot of different things in that 
regard that I'd be happy to talk about if you're interested.
    Thank you.
    [The prepared statement of Mr. Gartland follows:]

[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
    
    Senator King. Thank you very much. I want to thank all of 
you for the important testimony and lots of ideas.
    I want to ask Kevin Schneider, who's the superintendent at 
Acadia--Kevin, you went through a major transportation study 
that went on for several years. You worked with the community. 
Where did you end up on that? And have you enough experience 
with it now to know whether it is working?
    Mr. Schneider. Yes, thank you, Chairman King. We spent 
several years preparing a transportation plan, which involved a 
great deal of community and stakeholder engagement. And you 
know, visitor use management at Acadia is not just about a 
vehicle reservation system. We're really trying to take a 
comprehensive approach by using a range of management actions, 
as outlined in that plan.
    We worked closely with our communities, our business 
partners to help develop that plan. You know, many 
opportunities for public engagement--it was about a four- or 
five-year planning effort to do that. And there were, as I 
said, several components to this--expanding key park-and-ride 
locations in Acadia National Park so that visitors can leave 
their car behind, hop on our Island Explorer bus and get to key 
destinations; expanding the transit system to offer more routes 
for visitors and better bus service; using concessions 
contracts to move to smaller-sized commercial touring buses; 
and, of course, vehicle reservations are a piece of that as 
well. And so, we, as a result----
    Senator King. You are doing the vehicle reservation at 
Cadillac Mountain this summer. Is it working? Do people know it 
when they get to the mountain or are they angry because they 
got there and didn't know they needed a reservation?
    Mr. Schneider. Yes, we are very pleased with how the 
vehicle reservation system is going this summer on Cadillac. We 
did a pilot for about 21 days last fall, in October, and as a 
result of that pilot, we made a few tweaks. But in a nutshell, 
we're very pleased. I'll give you an example. I was on the 
summit of Cadillac on the first day of our reservations this 
year in May. I was there in uniform, kind of seeing how things 
were playing out. A visitor was there. He came up to me and he 
said that he had been there a week prior to watch the sunrise 
and he said it was a complete mess. There were cars everywhere. 
You know, completely overparked, cars double-parked. And he 
said, ``This is so much better with the reservation system.'' 
And we're hearing that sentiment from visitor reviews online. 
You can look at Tripadvisor. You can look at the Recreation.gov 
app and see what people are saying.
    I think visitors understand that, you know, there are only 
150 parking spaces on Cadillac Mountain and we want people to 
have a really high-quality experience and not everybody can be 
up there at the same time in their cars. It was not abnormal 
for us to have as many as 500 cars on the summit of Cadillac 
Mountain for those 150 parking spaces prior to the reservation 
system.
    Senator King. Let me ask Mr. Reynolds a question. One of 
the issues, I understand, and I may be wrong about this, but 
the Park Service has a policy of not favoring one park over 
another, in terms of advertising and promotion. But can we 
think about that policy in terms of promoting the lesser-used 
national parks? For example, I was in Southwest Texas at one 
point and almost, because of the weather, went to Big Bend and 
it turned out to be one of the best experiences that my family 
has had. It was a very little-visited national park. Can we do 
some promotion that will spread the visitation around somewhat 
so that they are not concentrated on a dozen iconic places?
    Mr. Reynolds. Yes, thank you. Thank you very much, Mr. 
Chairman, both for this hearing and conversation, but also for 
that question. We absolutely can be doing a much better job of 
letting the Americans know--I mentioned in my testimony, 423 
sites. Many of them are gems--your words. And a lot of times 
they drive right by them on their way to a Glacier, to a 
Yellowstone.
    We're interested in capturing folks once they're in a 
region of an area. If you go with your family, you're usually 
some place for three or four days and you'll have time and you 
can balance a suite of these kinds of things, like Kevin just 
mentioned is being done in Acadia. Well, while maybe you're 
waiting for an hour to get your ticket, you know, you might 
want to know that there is the Roosevelt site up on the 
Canadian border with Maine. And that's an affiliated area of 
the National Park System.
    We have ways to use our new mobile app--Recreation.gov can 
help connect people to use and know about these places.
    Senator King. Does that have a feature like Waze, the app 
that tells you where the congestion is?
    Mr. Reynolds. No, it doesn't.
    Senator King. Could that be added?
    Mr. Reynolds. I can't speak for that. We can come back to 
you and see what Recreation.gov, the folks that manage that for 
us, would be able to do. But I will tell you we're working in 
the field of emerging mobile technology--mobile integration, 
which I'm sure Senator Daines knows about, and this can range 
from tracking vehicles using Bluetooth without personal data to 
know what traffic is doing, much like what Waze, I think, uses 
background wise.
    We have, as you know, bandwidth and infrastructure 
problems, particularly in the West, that can----
    Senator King. We are working on that in another bill.
    Mr. Reynolds [continuing]. It can challenge us. That's 
another hearing. But yes, we have ways that we're working 
with--particularly our partners in the Federal Highway 
Administration right now with some innovative new technologies 
that will help us both manage and get the word out.
    Senator King. Thank you. Senator Daines.
    Senator Daines. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Gartland, 
thanks again for coming today. I want to explore Glacier Park's 
ticketing system further with you. You made several comments 
about that in your testimony. You noted the ticketing system 
has its benefits as well as its drawbacks and the community 
believes there need to be some improvements. What are the top 
one or two improvements that you might suggest the Park Service 
might look at to help make that ticketing process better?
    Mr. Gartland. Well, Senator, thank you for the question and 
thank you for the invitation to speak today.
    Well, there are a lot of things that could be done to it. I 
expect that, when we close this summer up, that the park will 
take a close look at that and determine how they want to move 
forward. I think really the biggest problem that we saw from an 
implementation standpoint was the late breaking of the decision 
to implement, really, less than 60 days before our peak summer 
season began. I know that there are reasons for that. We've all 
been living in a bizarro world for the last year and a half and 
there was lots of uncertainty about where we would be this 
summer.
    But really, in talking with the folks here, we need to make 
a decision on what's going to happen next summer within the 
next couple of months if we're going to stay the course on 
this--and that really is the advice that my organization would 
give us, because we do think there are benefits to it.
    We think the primary drawback and hassle this year has been 
that the decision was made late. Folks make reservations to 
visit Glacier National Park a year, two years in advance. When 
you make the reservations at hotels in the park and just 
adjacent to the park, they are available exactly one year from 
the day you go online. So folks are making those reservations a 
long time in advance. They're booking their flights a long time 
in advance. They had no chance to know that this was here, 
unless they went back and did some more planning. You're right. 
I'm a planner, so I would've known that the $2 ticket was 
there. But there are a lot of folks who walk in here and are 
completely surprised by it. So I think, number one, let's make 
the decision if we're going to continue with that early, no 
less than six months in advance, which would be December 1st, 
as six months before our peak season begins, Memorial Day-ish.
    And the other one would be to have a bit more of a 
comprehensive marketing campaign to get the news about that 
out. That really was the lacking here, not just to folks like 
us who run visitor centers and deal with hundreds of people 
every day, planning their trips, but lodges, hotels, 
outfitters, all of those folks are de facto tourism counselors 
for Glacier National Park. We all get those tickets. When you 
walk into a restaurant and you don't know the area, you ask the 
waitress or the waiter, where would you go? And those things 
happen.
    So really, from our perspective, it was a matter of 
timing--the late start, late decision to make the program work. 
And then, really, despite a lot of effort on behalf of the park 
staff, there was just a lot of uncertainty about how the system 
worked, what you needed to do to get a ticket, how come you 
were being spun off at 8 in the morning when you punched that 
button at 8:01, and just a lot of things--really, a lot of 
frustration getting to become comfortable with something new, 
Senator.
    Senator Daines. Yes. Thank you, Mr. Gartland. Those sound 
like solvable problems, right? Sounds like, just put a stake in 
the ground quickly so that we can make better plans for next 
year. And then, I think, the second issue seemed even almost an 
educational issue to understand how the system works.
    Just to press you for one more. Assuming we could solve 
those two problems--I think we can, just hearing from what you 
just told us--is there one other thing you might think about to 
change on that ticketing system? Any other thought come to 
mind?
    Mr. Gartland. Yes, you know, the Chamber has two roles in 
life. One is improve business vitality and the other one is 
maintain quality of life. So from the quality-of-life 
standpoint of the folks that live here and work here and drive 
the economy--work in Glacier and support that economy--they 
need to have access to the park. I don't know how that happens.
    We had a discussion about that for about an hour yesterday 
on how do you make it available for folks who are--the reason 
they come here, Senator, to work for the summer, is so that 
they can enjoy the park. And if they're leading raft trips down 
the Middle Fork and the Flathead, which is half in the park and 
half out of the park and they can't get a pass to get into the 
park without going online at 8:00 in the morning when they're 
working to compete with all the millions of folks that who are 
trying for those--we have to find a way to be able to 
accommodate them and we have to be able to find a way to 
accommodate those who are staying in park properties, whether 
they're concessionaire-run or not, and can't access the entire 
park.
    If you go to Many Glacier Hotel and stay in Glacier 
National Park, you can't access the Going-to-the-Sun Road 
without having an extra $2 ticket. If you're at Lake McDonald, 
you can.
    So I think there are a lot of issues regarding how we can 
prioritize. And I imagine there are legal issues about if we 
can prioritize who can have access to the park or not. But I 
think those are some of the tougher decisions that have to be 
dealt with.
    Senator Daines. Mr. Gartland, thank you. They are telling 
me I am out of time here. But Mr. Reynolds, we talked a little 
bit about the ticket entry system here and the questions I had. 
What's your feedback been from local communities? Do you 
believe this has been an effective tool? We got Mr. Gartland's 
thoughts firsthand there from Glacier.
    Mr. Reynolds. Yes.
    Senator Daines. You are looking at more of these parks that 
put in some kind of ticketed system. Thoughts?
    Mr. Reynolds. Yes. Thank you, Senator. So, you know, 
apologies to Kevin and the team and the folks in Whitefish and 
around the park for some of the fits and starts on that. So I 
have definitely heard that, if that's helpful, at the regional 
level, as well. I've also heard of late that it's gotten 
smoother. And as I mentioned in testimony, we're spreading 
things out and the experience is better.
    We're hearing from Estes Park and some other folks, 
anecdotally, that business is doing well with the system and 
that they're also experimenting at Rocky. But, admittedly, I 
think what Mr. Gartland's testimony and his really good points 
bring up is that we've got to work very closely with the 
business communities--with the communities. Almost a 
collaborative partnership needs to form so that we're not doing 
this in a vacuum, and we will do that much more ahead.
    The good news about our system is that no one size fits 
all. So what goes on at one park can be very different for a 
variety of reasons at another park. And we are trying to be 
extremely flexible and innovative in the way that these things 
go and not dictate to our parks how they form, which would let 
them be much more local in their development.
    Senator Daines. Great, thanks, Mr. Reynolds. And Mr. 
Gartland, good news. Mr. Reynolds has heard you loud and clear 
here this morning. So this is all part of the process here of 
our hearing. So thank you, and thanks Mr. Reynolds.
    Senator King. By the way, Senator Daines, you mentioned 
that in 1980, you graduated from high school. Are you old 
enough to be a U.S. Senator?
    [Laughter.]
    Senator King. I found that as shocking.
    Senator Daines. Well, I want to hear those firsthand 
accounts of Lewis & Clark from you, there, Angus, whenever you 
have a chance.
    [Laughter.]
    Senator King. I asked for that. Senator Hirono.
    Senator Hirono. I am stunned that--what? You graduated from 
where in 1980?
    Senator King. From high school. Can you imagine?
    Senator Hirono. It is too much information. I first ran for 
office in 1980.
    Senator Daines. It was Student Body President, Bozeman High 
School for me.
    [Laughter.]
    Senator Hirono. Oh my gosh. Okay, well, you know it 
requires all of us to be here. So that is all I can say. Thank 
you, Mr. Chairman.
    Mr. Reynolds, it is very clear that our parks, especially 
now, with COVID possibly receding, although in many places not 
so much, we have always had too many visitors and maybe not 
enough staff. Lots of tensions, lots of times when, I think, 
our employees have been under a lot of stress. Would you agree?
    Mr. Reynolds. Thank you, Senator, for acknowledging that. 
The women and men of the National Park Service are my heroes. 
Particularly this last year they, much like all of us, all of 
you, dealt with very strange pressures on their lives, and we 
ask them to do a lot. The positive side of COVID, if there is 
one, is that they have been very, very innovative. They have 
started to rethink things at the front-line level. The downside 
is there is a lot of care and healing that we need to do, and 
support, to make sure our employees are staying mentally fit.
    Senator Hirono. Yes, so that is where I am going. What are 
you doing to make sure that your employees' mental health needs 
are being addressed? Do you have special counseling programs or 
things of that sort that you have set up?
    Mr. Reynolds. Yes, thanks for that question, Senator. So 
we've had, for years, things like the critical incident stress 
teams that will come in when an employee has, perhaps, been in 
a very difficult situation--an accident or a rescue. We've 
deployed those a lot more of late. We also--parks have unique 
relationships, sometimes, with a county health provider, 
sometimes with private providers or employee assistance 
programs, where you can quickly bring in a counselor or some 
other folks to work with groups.
    I can give you a couple of personal examples from a fire 
that we managed in Yosemite, and we would bring the community 
together a couple times a week with a counselor that came from 
the county. We did a cooperative agreement with them.
    Senator Hirono. Do you have feedback from your employees 
that these kinds of efforts are helping them?
    Mr. Reynolds. There is definitely positive feedback on many 
of the events. We can do a lot more, Senator, and we intend to 
do so.
    Senator Hirono. Yes, I think you should.
    Mr. Gartland, I am astounded. I have never visited Glacier 
National Park so I feel as though, my goodness, it would take 
me a long time to get there, to be able to get a ticket. I know 
that Mr. Reynolds said that it is not a ``one size fits all''--
that the community has to be, I assume, involved in the number 
of people who get into the parks and the accommodation for 
local people. So do you think enough is being done to make sure 
that the community around Glacier National Park and their 
concerns are being addressed, even as there is a--what did you 
say--a one-year wait for people to get into the park?
    Mr. Gartland. Well, no, I said there's a one-year 
reservation window.
    Senator Hirono. Oh, reservation window, thank you.
    Mr. Gartland. Yes. Senator, if you'd like to come out and 
see Glacier National Park, I'm sure we could find a way to get 
you in the gate, number one. I'll give you my pitch that I have 
given a thousand times this summer. You can get into Glacier 
without a ticket before 6:00 in the morning, after 5:00 in the 
afternoon, or you can go to the east side and you can get into 
the Two Medicine area of the park or Many Glacier and enjoy the 
park without that $2 ticket.
    But yes, I believe the park does a good job of interfacing 
with the community. Superintendent Mow sits on a group that 
meets monthly with us. He sits on many different groups that 
meet monthly in our community, but with the group of Chamber of 
Commerce and Convention and Visitors Bureau and folks from the 
Forest Service and the BLM and all of our different agencies to 
talk about what's happening, what's being considered. So a lot 
of us in that group were privy to the fact that we were 
considering this type of a system. And he asked for our input 
and he actually staged meetings--Zoom meetings--with our 
business community, anybody who wanted to sit down and talk 
about this when the decision was finally made and as they were 
in the final stages of getting to that decision.
    So I believe that they do a good job of seeking input from 
the communities around them and the public, and they are 
concerned about the impacts of the decisions they make in the 
park and what impact they have on folks outside the group.
    Senator Hirono. So as in so many of our national parks, it 
is a situation where there are so many businesses very much 
dependent on the visitors. At the same time, there is such a 
thing as overload, so I am always interested to make sure that 
the local community has a voice in the decisions that are made 
with reference to what is happening in the national parks near 
them.
    Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Senator King. Thank you, Senator. Senator Lee.
    Senator Lee. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Mr. Reynolds, I would like to start with you. You serve as 
the Regional Director for the Park Service for Interior Regions 
6, 7, and 8. And that, of course, puts you in charge of the 
parks within my state. Now, as I understand it, some problems 
with overcrowding occur and can be addressed inside of our 
parks, but many of these issues begin outside of our parks. Can 
you tell me a little bit about this consideration?
    Mr. Reynolds. Yes. Senator, thanks for that question. 
Getting people before they arrive would be one idea. And that's 
something that we are exploring some better--I guess you could 
say models and partnerships to look at traffic. We have a study 
happening in Grand Teton, outside of Utah, right now, but in 
our region, that's looking at where visitors are coming from, 
what they do when they get there, what their vehicles are 
doing, what their visitation preferences are.
    These kinds of studies, through some social science work 
and working with the Federal Highway Administration, should be 
able to give us better data. But I think really getting the 
word out--Mr. Gartland mentioned, I think, something very 
similar, right? Before you leave the house, as it were, 
wherever you are, what is the situation on the ground? That's 
something that we're exploring.
    Senator Lee. Right. So that people can decide when the best 
time might be for them to visit and which part of the park to 
enter, which part of the park to visit.
    In 2020, Zion National Park, in my State of Utah, was the 
third most visited park in the nation, with around 3.6 million 
visitors. At times Zion has had to deal with some of these 
overcrowding issues because that is a lot of people visiting 
one park. In many cases a reservation has been suggested as the 
only solution in spite of strong opposition from most park 
visitors and local communities and that is something I strongly 
oppose.
    But I think the East Zion Initiative can also serve as an 
excellent test case for what can be done to address these 
issues without capping visitors or degrading resources. Can you 
tell me a little bit about the efforts being undertaken to 
disperse visitors to underused assets as part of the East Zion 
Initiative?
    Mr. Reynolds. Yes, Senator. So we're pretty excited about 
the conversations happening in and around Zion, and I'm just 
going to use that as a general, regional area, if you will, 
sir, with the counties. But there's a multi-stakeholder 
engagement. There are interested citizens and developers that 
have the East Zion Initiative and others that could help to 
supplement what people will be able to do and stay and 
experience.
    My understanding of the East Zion Initiative is we have 
some robust conversations starting again, so that we don't have 
just ``one size fits all'' for Zion. And you know, I've spoken 
to the East Zion folks, at least briefly, and they're extremely 
interested in working closely with us and the superintendent is 
as well.
    Senator Lee. And those things have been very helpful and 
they are very appropriate for Zion. Zion consists of about 
148,000 acres of land. But in years past, much of that 
visitation, as far as I can tell, the vast majority of it--
overwhelming majority of it--has gravitated toward just a small 
handful of features in the park that are on, more or less, one 
side of the park. I have been very, very pleased to see 
Superintendent Bradybaugh and other park leadership working to 
collaborate with local communities and trying to figure out how 
to preserve resources and facilitate greater access. How can we 
encourage this type of collaboration in all of our gateway 
communities?
    Mr. Reynolds. Well, I think they are certainly--
Superintendent Bradybaugh and his very good team are really 
innovative about how to handle those visitors without a lot of 
problems and are leading the way, along with the partners in 
that community, which had started long ago. They were one of 
the first shuttle systems, as you know, Senator.
    And so, I think that we should be looking at the Zion 
conversations, the stakeholder meetings, as a model that we 
should try and strive for in other parks that we're dealing 
with, because I think having everyone at the table will avoid 
some of the problems we were just talking about a few minutes 
ago with Mr. Gartland.
    Senator Lee. Some of these questions that you are 
addressing regarding dispersion and utilization of park assets, 
these are things that tend to require some fairly technical 
analysis.
    Mr. Reynolds. Yes.
    Senator Lee. What resources are currently available to our 
park superintendents to help make sure that our parks are 
accessible and well-maintained?
    Mr. Reynolds. Yes, there's a range. I mean, the 
superintendent may say there's not enough yet, but we have a 
small social science program. These are folks that help us with 
study design and how to do things, you know, much more 
credibly, right, than just a back of the napkin kind of an 
approach.
    So we have, first of all, some academic help. We have CESUs 
(Cooperative Education Study Units), and we have a number of 
them in Utah. And so, we can tap into academic help that way. 
We also have the Visitor Use Management Framework. We've 
trained a little over 300 of our employees throughout the 
service on that--about how to handle the various tools and 
mechanisms within a visitor use framework, and the Zion team is 
extremely up to speed on that.
    Senator Lee. Thank you very much.
    Senator King. We will have a second round, and I want to 
start with Ms. Brengel. You mentioned in your testimony 
concerns about reservation systems and additional fees, in 
terms of impact on equity. We want everyone to be able to visit 
national parks. Could you expand on that concern and how we 
balance a reservation system, which seems to work in many 
cases, with the danger of excluding people from the park 
experience?
    Ms. Brengel. Sure. I think when you hear about the 
visitation in many of the popular parks that do assess or have 
fee systems, that visitation is still growing. So fees are not 
a deterrent for people to come into parks. But what we did 
find, in terms of reservation systems, was in Yosemite last 
year when, due to COVID, they put a reservation system in 
place, was that some of the day visitors who were Latino 
struggled with the English-only information about getting into 
the parks and weren't aware of the reservation system. And so, 
communicating with folks about the reservation systems is sort 
of a key piece--and the fee system.
    But our concern is the families who are coming in who are 
low income, whether it is a deterrent for them to come into a 
park and buy an America the Beautiful pass, or a day pass, or a 
week pass, because of the fees. And I just don't think it's 
been thoroughly studied within the park system what is 
deterring certain low-income visitors from parks.
    And so, I think, as Mike was just talking about, the social 
science, they're small teams. We need to add to the social 
science teams and make sure that we're taking a look and 
actually surveying people as to what is deterring them from 
coming into parks, and if fees are playing a role in it.
    Senator King. Thank you. I think the result of what you are 
saying is that more study is necessary to examine unintended 
consequences.
    Ms. Brengel. Yes.
    Senator King. Particularly with regard to equity.
    Mr. Reynolds, I'm very interested in the technological 
aspects of this. One possibility--we talked about adding to the 
program a kind of Waze component, where you could immediately 
check and see what the congestion situation is. Another piece 
would be to have a--I have an app on my phone called 
``AroundMe'' that, if I type in ``restaurant'', it will show me 
all the restaurants within a few miles. The same thing could be 
done in terms of natural resources.
    The example I give, my family and I were in Moab and we 
were between Arches and Canyonlands. We went to a diner and the 
wait staff said, ``Oh, you've got to go to Dead Horse Point 
State Park'', which is adjacent. And we wouldn't have--except 
for that coincidence, we wouldn't have known about it. So I 
also think about, as an antidote to this congestion problem, 
making people aware of other cultural, historic, and scenic 
assets in the area, through your Recreation.gov app or a 
different national park app.
    Mr. Reynolds. Yes, so I agree, Senator. I think any of 
these--embracing technology is a really important part of our 
communications and engagement framework. I mentioned earlier--
--
    Senator King. And by the way, it would be nice if it were 
in multiple languages. Right, Ms. Brengel?
    Mr. Reynolds. Yes. That will be a challenge. But we fully 
embrace this need for equity and inclusion, you know, with our 
diverse visitors that are now coming--the face of America.
    We also--the NPS mobile app, this new app that I've 
mentioned--I hope you have one on your phone, Senator. It's fun 
to use. But it's going to integrate across the platforms that 
we do have now, like Recreation.gov. And it has, I think, the 
seeds for much of what you're asking us about. But we would 
love to sit down with who you would suggest, or your staff, to 
talk through more about what we can do to expand on this idea.
    Senator King. You mentioned--I think it was you that 
mentioned timed-entry pilots.
    Mr. Reynolds. Yes.
    Senator King. My question is, what results are you seeing? 
In other words, I assume what that means is you can go to 
Going-to-the-Sun Road at 10:00 a.m. or at 3:00 p.m. You 
schedule a time ahead. Is that what you are referring to?
    Mr. Reynolds. Not quite, Senator--more what the pilots are, 
before we've made final decisions, and Glacier would be the 
perfect example of that. The Going-to-the-Sun Road program 
right now is a pilot. So I'm trying to say this in a sense of 
good news for those that are critical of it right now, because 
we're learning as we go. We are trying to respond to what 
looked, and has become, a very, very busy summer with, you 
know, more limited staff. And so, the pilot did help us to 
manage, but we're also learning daily how best to tweak things. 
Rocky Mountain is in a second summer of piloting, and 
Superintendent Sidles there has adjusted a lot of things based 
on what they've learned over time.
    So one thing we have learned is that the hour of the day 
could be adjusted, to perhaps allow more folks that are local, 
as Mr. Gartland was speaking of, to be able to get into the 
park at a more reasonable hour, because they learned that maybe 
the visitation patterns weren't as full as they thought in 
certain parking lots. Or likewise, they learned that perhaps in 
that park, there's a certain road corridor that's extremely 
popular. You can probably imagine. And so they have focused an 
effort around that area, and then that lets people be a little 
more free in the rest of the park.
    So those are the kinds of lessons that we learn through 
these pilots. And then we're able to tweak before we've made 
something official, right, and government planned.
    Senator King. Superintendent Schneider, I take it you are 
finding that the new system at Cadillac is, in fact, working 
with a minimum of irritation or resistance. Is that accurate?
    Mr. Schneider. Yes, it's working very well. We printed over 
200,000 of these cards to help get the word out about the 
system, which is really, really important. We want visitors to 
know about it when they show up. We don't want visitors showing 
up and saying, ``What do you mean I need a reservation?'' And 
we distributed those to our lodging partners, to welcome 
centers throughout the State of Maine, all the visitor centers, 
local chambers of commerce, and so on.
    When you make a lodging reservation around here, many of 
the hotels will send you an email saying, ``Don't forget to 
make your Acadia reservations and here's how to do it'', with 
the link to the Recreation.gov website.
    Seventy percent of our reservations go on sale 48 hours 
out. So for example, if you want a reservation to go to 
Cadillac tomorrow, you can go online right now, and 
reservations are available. Sunrise is already sold out. 
Sunrise sells out in literally a minute or seconds. But there 
are ample reservations typically available on a regular basis.
    Senator King. By the way, Eastport, Maine says they get the 
first sun of the year, but I won't get into that dispute. 
Senator Daines.
    Senator Daines. Senator Kelly is here.
    Senator King. Oh, I am sorry. Senator Kelly.
    Senator Kelly. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Mr. Reynolds, I understand that you oversee the National 
Park Service region that includes Arizona. As you probably 
know, we have a visitor access issue at Lake Powell in Glen 
Canyon National Park. And Mr. Chairman, I have a letter from 
Mayor Diak, of the City of Page, Arizona, that I ask to be 
added to the record.
    Senator King. Without objection.
    [Letter from Mayor Diak follows:]

[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
    
    Senator Kelly. The mayor's letter talks about the closure 
of boat ramps at Lake Powell due to declining water levels, and 
he reports that visitors cannot launch any boats from South 
Lake Powell. Mr. Reynolds, drought conditions in the West have 
caused the nation to lose access to one of the largest 
reservoirs in the nation. If this continues unmitigated, it 
could crush the economy of Page, Arizona and, you know, this is 
certainly an engineering issue. I mean, if the ramp doesn't 
reach the water, the ramp is unusable. I get that. But what is 
the Park Service doing to rehabilitate, or extend the ramps at 
South Lake Powell?
    Mr. Reynolds. Yes, thank you, Senator. And we are aware of 
the mayor's letter, so thank you for having that in the record. 
And our superintendent, Billy Shott, down there is working 
closely with the mayor and I understand your staff, as well, 
for these solutions.
    The drought situation on the Colorado River is a huge 
crisis. We are investing and moving--I guess you could say this 
is an artful term--but moving money around to try and 
prioritize for the superintendent and that team there. I think 
they call them pipe and gravel, rather than a formal, paved 
apron for boat ramp, to try and get some things in.
    Ironically, there are some old boat ramps that were 
buried--you know, were under the water, right? They were built 
there in the 1960's as the water was rising. We used them and 
then they went underwater. They're now coming open again and 
there may be some opportunities that they're looking at, as we 
speak, in the last 48 hours, to see if we can put some funding 
in there to reutilize those sites. There are a lot of 
complexities, as you could imagine, but we would be happy to 
sit down with your team and talk through all the details of 
what we're working on. But we are prioritizing some funding to 
help the park to respond to this so that we can maintain some 
temporary or secondary boat ramps, as it were. There are really 
only two open right now out of the eleven that we normally 
have.
    Senator Kelly. Would that funding come from the $1.6 
billion from the Great American Outdoors Act? Is that where 
that funding would come from?
    Mr. Reynolds. I'll let the team follow up with your staff 
to detail exactly that, but my best thought is no. It would 
usually come from some emergency funding that we have because 
there are very specific--as you know well--very specific 
requirements around the GAOA money.
    Senator Kelly. And I understand we will be discharging some 
water from Lake Powell to Lake Mead here, imminently?
    Mr. Reynolds. Yes.
    Senator Kelly. What is the anticipated decrease in the 
level of Lake Powell from that?
    Mr. Reynolds. I'll have to get back to you on that exact 
number, but the Bureau of Reclamation is really the one in 
charge of that water flow, and they have been letting us know 
that they're sending water on down through the chain through 
some of the other states that we also see. I think that it's 
just basically to keep stabilizing things as long as we can. 
But we'll get you those numbers, Senator.
    Senator Kelly. Well, thank you, Mr. Reynolds.
    Ms. Brengel, good morning and thanks for joining us today. 
This summer, we are glad to see that visitation at Grand Canyon 
National Park appears to be returning to pre-pandemic levels. 
Fortunately, the park has not needed to adopt any form of 
reservation system like other parks have for day visits, but 
there is still a need to expand Grand Canyon's bus and shuttle 
system to address the two-hour wait times that occasionally 
happen when people are trying to get to the South Rim.
    In your testimony, you suggest using more buses to 
transport visitors to national parks. Could the National Park 
Service be doing more to promote park-and-ride services in 
communities that neighbor national parks, such as Tusayan, 
Arizona?
    Ms. Brengel. Yes, and I think one example could be 
Yosemite, where the shuttles can start outside of the park and 
come in. And you know, there are a couple of other examples of 
that, and I think Kevin talked about the Island Explorer at 
Acadia, as well. The issue is, sometimes you're still 
increasing the volume into a park. And so, you really need to 
look at how many people you're still bringing in via shuttle, 
and how you're circulating them around the park. And that's 
where the social science that we've been talking about is going 
to become really important is--where are the shuttles taking 
folks and are we distributing the visitation throughout the 
park?
    But this is where we need your help, too, is we have an 
infrastructure bill being crafted right now and we've been able 
to benefit. The Park Service has been able to benefit from 
money in the surface transportation bill to purchase shuttles. 
And so we really just need to make sure that we're looking at 
the surface transportation bill and the infrastructure proposal 
and adding in funds for transit for parks, or for transit for 
outside communities to use to bring people into parks.
    But it's a great system. I think it works in a lot of 
parks. I think we need to explore that in the parks that are 
getting serious overcrowding. But I would just say, in Grand 
Canyon, where people get dropped off, and making sure that 
we're distributing folks around the park is going to be 
important.
    Senator Kelly. Well, thank you, Ms. Brengel, and I look 
forward to working with your office on solving some of these 
issues. Thank you.
    Senator King. Senator Daines.
    Senator Daines. Chairman, thank you. One of my priorities 
in this Committee has been to find ways to encourage visitation 
to some of our lesser-known parks. This would relieve some 
pressure on the big parks, while boosting visitation at these--
as has been referred to today--hidden gems.
    My question, Mr. Reynolds, is if you could provide some 
additional thoughts on what the Park Service is doing to 
provide an increased visibility of some of these lesser visited 
parks.
    Mr. Reynolds. Yes. First off, on a broader scale, Senator, 
trying to really highlight them in some of the public 
newsletters that might go out to different web publications or, 
you know, personal apps that just say ``Hey, have you ever 
heard of this place?'' And this is what it does. So we start 
some campaigns working with our communications office here in 
Washington, as well, to make sure these lesser-known parks--
which are also stories, right? American stories are told.
    The other thing we ask our superintendents in these parks 
with the lower visitation numbers is to be very aggressive, if 
you will, with their education and outreach to particularly 
work with the local communities around them or the regional 
tourism boards to help them highlight their sites. And then 
we're encouraging more and more special events or certain 
educational programs that would be--I guess you could call them 
the niche opportunities to see things. So Grant-Kohrs Ranch, in 
your good state, Senator, could be really highlighting the life 
and art of the cowboy of the West, right, and that may attract 
a certain number of people that didn't even realize a working 
ranch is part of the National Park System.
    Senator Daines. It seems like visitors are always intrigued 
by how to get off the beaten path.
    Mr. Reynolds. Yes.
    Senator Daines. And find those areas that are maybe a 
little less discovered, relatively speaking. I think the 
Chairman mentioned his example where there was a recommendation 
like, ``You are here but have you thought about this other 
location?'' I guarantee, if we were to do a car-to-car survey 
of those who are waiting in line at either Glacier Park or 
Yellowstone National Park, and say, ``Have you ever heard of 
Grant-Kohrs National Historic Site?''
    Mr. Reynolds. Right.
    Senator Daines. I am guessing the awareness of that park 
would be in the single digits at best.
    Mr. Reynolds. Well, Senator, we often say in this visitor 
use planning, we use indicators and standards. So we'll use 
Grant-Kohrs Ranch, you and I, as an indicator, to see how we're 
doing the next year.
    Senator Daines. Alright. Yes, well, that would be a way to 
see what kind of name ID they have there.
    Back on the issue of innovation, and Chairman, a little of 
this has been talked about already. You know, the private 
sector has been using technology innovation to solve the 
challenge we are talking about here today for a long time. 
Whether it is a theme park, hotels, campgrounds, highways, it 
has successfully used new and innovative ways to drive visitors 
to specific places at specific times, even with traffic and 
just, like, a Waze app.
    What can the Park Service do to better tap into that 
success? Because I think we do not have to really reinvent too 
much here. I think there is some reapplication that can be done 
that would do it more cost effectively and have a better 
outcome to address some of these concerns we are talking about 
today, by the use of technology.
    Mr. Reynolds. Yes. I do think this is one of our 
challenges. There are funding challenges, there's logistics, 
there's--you know, we're park people, not necessarily 
programmers, right? But we have a lot of friends, allies, and 
stakeholders that can help us in this, Senator. And I think 
that's what we need to do is to be pushing ourselves to find 
ways, you know, and all the legal mechanisms and agreements to 
work with those that are already doing these things and see if 
they can tag onto our existing infrastructure.
    Senator Daines. Yes, I think that some of these public-
private partnerships like ``Find Your Park'' have been 
successful in helping drive visitation to new parks. I think 
there are a lot of folks who want to help us solve this 
problem----
    Mr. Reynolds. Yes.
    Senator Daines [continuing]. To improve the user experience 
and to help the businesses that surround, and are part of, 
these gateway communities, as well.
    Mr. Reynolds. Yes, and, you know, there will be places in 
the National Park System that have the bandwidth and some of 
the infrastructure. I'm not trying to make excuses, but just 
trying to start where we've got----
    Senator Daines. Sure.
    Mr. Reynolds [continuing]. That ability. As you know, 
working with Superintendent Sholly, he's working on some 
mechanisms with the private sector to help fund it, basically, 
to put in some more broadband infrastructure. You can be in 
Yellowstone--I think some people are very grateful for this--
and be completely offine, but there are some applications for 
it, to your point.
    Senator Daines. Yes. I think probably, as Mr. Gartland 
would attest, we do not want people going home from an 
experience with a negative kind of rating because of the lack 
of access or lack of planning and having a poor experience. I 
think it is beneficial to get repeat visitation. We want people 
to go back home and tell their ten friends and neighbors here 
about what a wonderful experience they had with our parks.
    Mr. Reynolds. I know a number of professionals in the 
National Park Service that would love to sit down with anyone 
you might suggest, Senator, to talk about that.
    Senator Daines. Okay, thank you. Mr. Chairman.
    Senator King. Well, I appreciate the witnesses' testimony 
today. I want to refer to a line in Mr. Gartland's testimony, 
which jumped out at me. He said, ``The law of supply and demand 
doesn't apply here. The demand is there but we can't just go 
out and build more Glacier Parks.'' Well, perhaps we need to 
bear that in mind as this Committee and Subcommittee consider 
new proposals for parks, that across the country there is a 
demand, and it is increasing.
    All the ideas we have talked about today--spreading the 
visitation out, reservation systems in certain situations, 
shuttle buses, and other situations--as we have all learned, 
there is no single solution. But one additional solution is to 
provide additional opportunities for people to enjoy these 
extraordinary places in our country.
    Again, I want to thank all of our witnesses for your 
testimony today. I want to be clear that we will have a period 
in which the Committee may submit additional questions in 
writing. If so, we would ask those members to submit those for 
the record by 6:00 p.m. tomorrow. We will keep the record open, 
and we will keep the hearing record open for two weeks to 
receive additional comments. And as those of you who have 
participated in our hearing today reflect upon our experience 
and if you have additional thoughts, please supply them to the 
Committee.
    As I said in the beginning, we are not starting this 
hearing with predetermined legislation. We are starting this 
hearing with a predetermined problem that we want to address on 
behalf of the American people.
    So thank you again to our witnesses, to my vice-chair, and 
this meeting is adjourned.
    [Whereupon, at 11:18 a.m., the hearing was adjourned.]

                      APPENDIX MATERIAL SUBMITTED

                              ----------                              

[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]


                                   [all]