“It’s the connection between how visitors are experiencing the park, but also how park management decisions are impacting Glacier’s natural and cultural resources.”
That’s how Kat Barrs, Glacier’s Visitor Use Management (VUM) Program Analyst, describes the VUM program.
According to the National Park Service, VUM is “the proactive and adaptive process for managing characteristics of visitor use” and “managing use well to provide sustainable recreation.”
But what does that really mean?
Wilderness camping is a popular activity in Glacier.
Understanding visitor use management
At the core of the VUM program is data.
“The data we collect is critical,” Barrs explains. “Data is what park management uses to make decisions. If we don’t have the data or something is unknown, it’s really hard to make an informed decision.”
The VUM staff includes data scientists who are responsible for collecting data throughout the park. From trail counters to vehicle counts on the park’s main roadways, they monitor how visitors interact with Glacier and its resources. This means knowing how many cars go into the Logan Pass parking lot and how long they stay there, or how many hikers begin a trail before the reservations start versus after. From there, they analyze this data and look for trends and patterns which could help the park to better manage and accommodate visitors.
“On a field day I’m going out to install, check or remove equipment,” Barrs says. “I might be doing encounter monitoring, hiking a trail and collecting data. I might be out all day doing a combination of checking trail counters and parking lot cameras, then I might be hiking the Hidden Lake trail for a few hours and counting how many people I come across. Then on my way home I’ll stop and check the road counters.”
Barrs then takes this data back to the office where it is stored and analyzed to help park management make informed decisions.
“With the information we collect, we’re looking at volume, we’re looking at hourly distribution, we’re looking at trends throughout hours of the day and across months of the use season,” explains Susie Sidder, Glacier’s VUM Program Manager. “We explore averages, but one of the things we really try to pay attention to is ‘Where is there variability?’ and ‘What can we learn from variation?’ rather than really just focusing on the averages.”
Sidder recently expanded the data the VUM team collects to include more focused data that aims to understand the realities of visitors’ experiences in the park.
“Last year was the first time that the park collected encounter monitoring data, which is basically a measure of, if you’re hiking on a trail at a typical pace, how many other people are you meeting on the trail as you travel to your destination?” Sidder says. “And then we use that data that’s collected to understand approximately how many people you are passing in an hour, how many breaks there are between groups, and are people really able to experience a range of different recreation experiences?”
Visitors to Glacier are often seeking solitude.
Informed decision making
“There is no one specific experience people are looking for when they come to Glacier,” Barrs explains. “There’s a whole spectrum of experiences that people come here looking for, and that’s part of what makes this place so special.”
By collecting and analyzing this data to help better understand visitor experiences in the park, the VUM team can help provide that whole spectrum of positive experiences for Glacier’s visitors, while also working to protect the park’s wilderness and wildlife from the effects of overuse.
“We’re tasked with providing for visitor enjoyment, but also preserving and protecting the area for generations to come, and visitor use is at the intersection of those two goals,” Barrs says.
“This data is important because it allows us to quantify trends in a way that is representative, comprehensive, and sets the park up to not have blind spots,” Sidder explains. “It really helps us understand what people are doing while they’re here. From there we can start to ask ourselves the question, are these actions and the way visitors are using the space and the resources consistent with how we want them to be recreating or how the facilities that we have are designed to accommodate them?”
The work the VUM team does stretches across the park. From human waste management in Glacier’s wilderness to traffic flow in the Going-to-the-Sun Road corridor, their work plays an important role in helping the park both protect its resources, and also ensure every visitor has the ability to experience Glacier in a way that resonates with them.
“We’re collecting this information with the goal of helping park management make decisions, and helping them make decisions that positively impact visitor experiences, as well as the natural and cultural resources in the park,” Barrs says.
How can you support visitor use management in Glacier?
This project and many other critical projects and programs would not be possible without your donations to the Glacier Conservancy.
Donate now to support important work like this in Glacier National Park!
