Our family trip to Maui was full of surfing, waterfall treks, and snorkeling with turtles. Catching the sunrise from the top of the 10,023-foot volcano in Haleakala National Park was supposed to be the crowning jewel. Some say it’s the greatest sunrise in the world. I wouldn’t know, though, because I forgot to make reservations two months in advance of the trip, and the only way you can see the sunrise from Haleakala is with a timed-entry permit.
These mandatory timed-entry reservations in national parks have become a hot topic the last few years. During the pandemic, when visitation to national parks soared, a few parks—starting with Arches in 2022—responded by implementing the reservation systems, which require all visitors to get permits for specific entry times during the busy season. Since then, other park units have implemented similar systems.
I recently spent a lot of time studying national-park visitor comments online, and the reservation system was the second-most frequent complaint. But you know what was the most frequent complaint among national-park visitors? Overcrowding in parks, which leads to traffic jams and a lack of parking, not to mention more pressure on the natural resources.
The National Park System has implemented these systems as a direct response. If you’ve sat in near standstill traffic in Yosemite, or waited for your turn to take a photo in Glacier, then you know something has to be done to mitigate the crowds.
I’m notoriously bad at making reservations for dinner a week in advance, let alone for a vacation three months down the road, so I get user frustration with the new system. But until some bright mind comes up with a better way to handle millions of people wanting to hike to Bear Lake in Rocky Mountain National Park, I think we’re all going to have to get used to planning certain national park experiences well in advance.
Here’s a look at the nine national parks that will require advance reservations for entry or on certain popular hikes in 2025.
1. Glacier National Park
Glacier National Park is bringing back last year’s timed-entry vehicle-reservation pilot project for the popular west side of Going-To-The-Sun Road and the North Fork area. The reservations will be required from June 13 to September 28, 2025, daily between 7 A.M. and 3 P.M.
Going-To-The-Sun Road, which is only open during the warm months, usually mid June through September, is a 50-mile-long paved byway that cuts through the center of the park, delivering visitors to the most popular trailheads. West Glacier, near Whitefish, is the western entrance of the road, and St. Mary Visitor Center is the gateway to the eastern edge of the park.
How to Get a Glacier National Park Reservation: You can make reservations starting on February 12 on on a rolling basis, 120 days in advance of desired visitation dates, starting at 8 A.M. MST. Any remaining vehicle reservations will be available at 7 P.M. MDT for next-day entry for dates throughout the season starting on June 12, 2025. Reservations require a $2 processing fee.
In 2025, visitors can still access the park at the East Entrance of Going-To-The-Sun Road without a reservation, but entry might be restricted at certain times without advance notice if the road becomes too congested. You can visit the beautiful Two Medicine Valley, also on the east side of the park and with its own entrance, without a reservation. If you lack a reservation and don’t want to trek 100 miles to the east side of the park, vehicles can drive Going-To-The-Sun Road from the western entrance as far as Apgar Village, which is two miles inside the park’s west entrance.
Backup Plan: If you have a reservation for lodging, camping, transportation, or a commercial activity, you can access the park within the intended service area of Going-To-The-Sun Road without making a timed-entry reservation as long as you can show proof of that booking.
If you don’t have a reservation, you can enter the park before 7 A.M. or after 3 P.M. Or take your chances and enter the park through the eastern entrance of Going-To-The-Sun Road, remembering that access might be restricted due to overcrowding on the road. Better yet, head to the east side of the park to Two Medicine Valley, which is full of trails leading to ice-blue backcountry lakes and towering peaks. The 9.6-mile hike to passes waterfalls and ends on the shore of the lake, which is flanked by the Continental Divide.
2. Arches National Park
Arches is bringing back its previous timed-entry reservation pilot program from 2022 to be used from April 1 to October 31, 2025, although this year you will not need reservations between July 7 and August 27. The program is a continuation of a reservation system that began as a direct response to Arches’ increased popularity; the park had seen a 73 percent rise in visitation from 2011 to 2021. Timed entry reservations will be required between 7 A.M. and 4 P.M. daily.
How to Get an Arches National Park Reservation: Reservations are released three months in advance in monthly blocks, so April reservations open on January 2, May reservations open February 1, June reservations open March 1, and so on. Tickets can be reserved at at 8 A.M. MST beginning January 2. Beginning March 31, additional next-day tickets will be released at 7 P.M. MST each evening. Cost for booking a reservation is $2. No tickets will be available at the park visitor center. Once you have a reservation, you’ll have a dedicated one-hour window to enter the park.
Backup Plan: You don’t need a reservation if you have camping, tour, or special-use permits.
You can also enter the park before 7 A.M. or after 4 P.M. without a reservation. Canyonlands National Park is only 27 miles southwest of Arches, and makes for a superb alternative if you can’t get inside Arches.
3. Rocky Mountain National Park
Rocky Mountain National Park has a two-tiered reservation system that, frankly, has confused a lot of people in the past couple of years. Still, it proved effective for mitigating crowds, so the park is bringing it back for 2025. Reservations will be required beginning May 23 through Oct. 14 or Oct 20 depending on the specific reservation you get.
Two types of reservations are available: one is a permit for the Bear Lake Road Corridor, which will also include access to the rest of the park, with reservations required from 5 A.M to 6 P.M.. The other is a permit for what is known as “the rest of the park,” excluding this corridor, with reservations needed from 9 A.M. to 2 P.M. daily. Bear Lake Road reservations are required from May 23 to October 20, but “the rest of the park” reservations are only necessary from May 23 to October 14. Why the distinction? The Bear Lake Road area is the most popular section of the park thanks to its collection of picturesque lakes and relatively easy hikes.
How to Get a Rocky Mountain National Park Reservation: You can get reservations through one month in advance, so reservations for June (and the last week of May) will be released at 8 A.M. MST on May 1. Reservations for July will be released June 1 at 8 A.M. MST. The park will also hold 40 percent of the permits for next-day reservations, releasing those at 7 P.M. MST the night before. The only cost for a reservation is a $2 process fee. Visitors with a reservation will have a dedicated two-hour window to enter the park.
Back Up Plan: The Bear Lake corridor is awesome, and the deeper you go on the trails in that area, the better it gets. But Rocky Mountain is a big park, and with the “rest of the park” reservation window so narrow (9 A.M. to 2 P.M.) there’s plenty of time to enter the park before or after those hours and still experience the iconic landscape. Driving Trail Ridge Road, the highest paved road in the U.S., topping out at 12,183 feet, is memorable all on its own. But I say set your alarm for an early wake up so you can hit the park before 9 A.M. and head to the Long’s Peak Trailhead for the 8.4-mile hike to Chasm Lake, a calm pool at the base of Long’s Peak where you’ll see a picture perfect view of the mountain’s 1,000-foot granite walls.
4. Zion National Park
You don’t need reservations to enter Zion National Park in 2025, but you will to hike to Angels Landing. The extremely popular hike leads to one of the most photogenic spots in the entire park: a narrow, rocky perch hovering 1,500 feet above the Virgin River. Reservations are required year round and released in a seasonal lottery beginning two months in advance of your intended hike. Next-day permits are also released, on the day before your intended hike.
How to Get a Reservation to Hike to Angels Landing: All reservations are released on . You’ll enter the lottery and pick seven ranked days and times when you want to tackle Angels Landing. You can register for up to six people in the lottery. If you win the lottery, permits are issued on the 25th of the month that you registered.
Lottery-permit applications are $6 and if you score a reservation, the cost is another $3 per hiker. The park also releases last-minute permits for next-day hikers. The lottery opens at 12 MST and closes at 3pm MST each day. The same fees apply. The confirmation email from recreation.gov serves as your permit.
Backup Plan: Getting a reservation is the only way you can hike to the end of Angels Landing, but no permit is necessary to hike the up to Scout Lookout, a 4.5-mile out and back that encompasses most of the same trail, missing only the final push along the knife-edge ridge to Angels Landing. But you’ll still get to hike along the Virgin River and through the breezy Refrigerator Canyon, and end with a great view of Zion Canyon from Scout Lookout.
5. Shenandoah National Park
No reservations are necessary to enter Shenandoah National Park, but you do need a permit to hike any of the several routes up the park’s signature peak, Old Rag, which is topped by a granite outcropping with a 360-degree view. After a two-year pilot program, Shenandoah National Park has made the Old Rag day-use permit system permanent. You’ll need a day-use ticket from March 1 to November 30. A limit of 800 permits are allotted each day.
How to Get a Permit to Hike Old Rag: Every member in your hiking party needs a permit. Tickets are $2, purchased at . Half of the tickets are released 30 days in advance on a rolling basis and the other half are open for grabs five days in advance. The permits are good from 12 A.M. to 11:59 P.M. of the date of your hike.
Backup Plan: Old Rag isn’t the only summit inside Shenandoah. The 3,514-foot Mary’s Rock, which requires no permit (only Old Rag does), is topped by a granite outcropping with a gorgeous view west into the pastoral Shenandoah Valley. You can reach the summit via a variety of trails, from an easy 1.5-mile out and back to an arduous that includes a slice of the Appalachian Trail.
6. Haleakala National Park
You don’t need a reservation to enter Haleakala National Park, a 33,265-acre gem on the island of Maui, but if you want to see the sunrise from the summit of its central 10,023-foot active volcano, you’ll need to plan ahead and get a permit. Reservations are necessary to enter the Summit District of the park from 3 A.M. to 7 A.M. daily. The system has been in place since 2017 because catching the sunrise from the top of this volcano is supposedly a transcendent experience.
How to Get a Reservation to See the Sunrise on Haleakala: Reservations can be made on up to 60 days in advance of your desired day. All permits are released at 7 A.M. HST daily on a rolling basis. For those with less foresight, 50 permits are released 48 hours in advance on a rolling basis, but don’t count on scoring one: only 150 cars are allowed into the park during sunrise each day. You can only get one sunrise reservation per three-day period.
Backup Plan: I tried to get last-minute reservations for sunrise on my recent family trip to Maui but had no luck. Instead, we showed up for sunset. Was it as transcendent as a sunrise? I can’t compare the two, but it was gorgeous and we didn’t have to wake up at 2 A.M. to drive into the park. If you’re dead set on experiencing the sunrise but can’t get an advance reservation, consider booking a couple of nights in the Summit District’s Each booking comes with a sunrise permit. Snag a campsite up to 30 days in advance. Sites are $5 per night, with a three-night maximum.
Hiking the Summit District is a delight even if you can’t catch a sunrise. My family spent our time poking around easy trails, but the is an 11-mile point-to-point that drops through the volcano’s crater, traveling through rust-red and black lava rock terrain that many describe as otherworldly.
7. Yosemite National Park
For the last couple of years, Yosemite has gone back and forth with timed-entry reservations: mandating and enforcing them, then taking the system away, then bringing it back. In 2024, the park introduced a Peak Hours Plus system for spring, summer, and fall that required reservations from 5 A.M. to 4 P.M.
The park hasn’t announced its plans for 2025 yet. But we do know that you’ll need reservations from February 8 to February 23 on weekends because of the mass appeal of Horsetail Falls, which at that time of year glows when sunlight hits it. You need an even if you don’t want to see Horsetail Falls. We’ll update this article with Yosemite’s 2025 plans when they are released.
How to Get a Reservation to See Horsetail Falls: Half of the reservations for the February Horsetail Falls were released in November of 2024. The other half will be released two days in advance of the target weekends at 8 A.M. PT on recreation.gov. So if you’re trying to get tickets for February 23, you can get reservations on February 21 at 8 A.M.. There’s a $2 reservation fee.
Backup Plan: If you want to see Horsetail Falls in its winter glory on a weekend, you need to score a reservation. There’s no way into Yosemite on a February weekend without that permit. Or you can hit the park on weekdays in February when no reservations are required.
If you make it inside the park in February and are looking for something else to do, head to the Bridge Pass Ski Area, which offers downhill skiing and is a hub of groomed and ungroomed cross-country trails. The is a 8.3-mile ski through meadows with a dramatic view into Yosemite Valley.
8. Acadia National Park
Acadia National Park did not require entrance reservations in 2024, but did require reservations for visitors wanting to drive Cadillac Summit Road from May 22 to October 27. The park has not announced its reservation plans for 2025, although Cadillac Summit Road permits are expected to be part of the management plan again.
How to Get a Cadillac Summit Road Permit: Last year, permits were required to drive the road from sunrise until sunset. The park released 30 percent of the permits 90 days in advance on on a rolling basis, while 70 percent of permits were released at 10 A.M. EST two days prior to desired dates. There was a $6 processing fee regardless of when you get the reservation.
Backup Plan: You’ll need to score a reservation if you want to drive to the top of Cadillac Mountain during the day time, but that’s not the only good view inside Acadia. Check out Great Head, a 145-foot tall summit with a dramatic view of Acadia’s beaches and coast, via this adventurous .
9. Mount Rainier National Park
Mount Rainier is the latest park to enter the timed-entry reservation game, introducing a pilot permit system last year for vehicles accessing the park via either the Paradise Corridor and Sunrise Corridor. Reservations were needed daily from 7 A.M. to 3 P.M. from May 24 through September 2 for the Paradise Corridor and July 3 to September 2 for the Sunrise Corridor. The park is still evaluating the results of that pilot program and has not yet announced plans for 2025. We’ll update this article when information is available.
How to Get a Reservation to Mount Rainier National Park: Advance reservations are made available on , and a small amount of next-day reservations are issued at 7 P.M. PT the day before on a rolling basis. A $2 processing fee is required for each reservation.
Backup Plan: If you can’t score a reservation, try entering the park before 7 A.M. or after 3 P.M. Also, visitors with camping, lodging, or wilderness permits don’t need a timed-entry reservation. Also, if you enter Sunrise Corridor on foot or bicycle, you don’t need a reservation. If you’re , State Route 410 (Sunrise Road) climbs 3,650 feet in 20 miles from the park boundary to Sunrise, an overlook sitting at 6,400 feet in elevation that offers a big view of snowcapped Rainier and the surrounding valley.
Graham Averill is ϳԹ magazine’s national parks columnist. He still regrets not scoring reservations for the sunrise in Haleakala National Park, and knows he needs to be better at planning ahead for such adventures. He recently wrote about the year’s (best) worst national park reviews; surviving a hurricane in his hometown of Asheville, North Carolina; and his choice for the country’s best state for adventures.
