Reminder - reservations are now available for July as it is 6 months out (to the day). I believe the time is 8 AM MST but I haven’t confirmed. This is a change from last year where it started later and released in monthly blocks the first of each month.
There also will be some sites reservable 4 days prior and 1 day prior, similar to what has been done for ticketed entry, allowing for 2 (now 3) purchasing windows. I of course was curious as to how these were allocated, so I attempted to compile and summarize below. Numbers could use more scrubbing, but I like the initial splits (about 50/50 advanced vs close in for Many Glacier and Two Medicine).
front_country_2024.jpg (69.2 KiB) Viewed 1053 times
Mildly related, I have been contemplating an availability checker / notifier for chatters that are interested. There seem to be a lot out there already, so maybe not needed (don't re-invent the [free] wheel), but it had me curious as to the frequency of these services.
So I'm thinking to do a 'shoot out' to see which [free] services are fastest / best. I was thinking to do a random date peak season Many Glacier, but if someone had a specific location/date of interest, I'd rather do that.
As far as services, I've seen:
Campnab ($10 and up)
Campflare (free)
Campscanner ($39 and up)
Wanderinglabs (free and up)
An update, I setup alerts with the following systems:
Campflare
Wanderinglabs
Rec.gov
API minutely query
The target date is Friday July 5th, which I chose as the the hardest date to get in my opinion with the holiday in high season.
I'll report on results if/when they come.
One thing I noticed is when trying to check some functionality this morning is that the 6 month out availability pops up day of as 'available' but isn't able to be added to cart until 10 AM Eastern (savings or standard, not sure). So this effectively shows you how many sites will be bookable. When I checked this morning, there were 5 for August 4th (6 months out). From my previous look, there could/should be 44, so 10%. Some of this is explainable by that if a 'leading edge' date is available, then subsequent dates will also be available for reservation, up to +14 nights total. So this means that people from the 4th and prior booked at least up to the 5th, which is logical, but seemed a bit high.
I have also read anecdotes about people reserving 14 day blocks regardless of intended checkin date and duration - as those can be modified later. I have also read anecdotes where people are booking target checkout date -14 days (and every date up to target checkin) such that it would give the the most daily opportunities as well as most availability for the date of concern. In plainer terms, if August 4th - 11th was my intended vacation, I could start trying to reserve July 27th for 14 days from January 27th (and onward ... January 28th for July 28th for 13 days, etc etc).
Long story short:
1) if you're looking to book front country for specific dates, consider doing it earlier for earlier dates that extend into your desired dates, and change it later
2) people that are partaking in activities such as reserving more nights that needed, will eventually cancel, and the days will return to available, which is where this availability hunter study comes in.
Homebrew:
Fri, 09 Feb 2024 08:08:22 -0800 (PST) - Available
Fri, 09 Feb 2024 08:10:22 -0800 (PST) - Gone
Campflare:
Fri, 09 Feb 2024 08:08:19 -0800 (PST) - Available
Wandering Labs:
Fri, 09 Feb 2024 08:11:10 -0800 (PST) - Available
The good news is that all three worked. The bad news is that it came and went between 2 and 3 minutes. Campflare beat my minutely checker by 1 second (coincidence on checking interval), but great response. By the time the Wandering Labs email was sent, the site had already been taken for a minute a least, so technically failed but not all sites may be swooped up that fast so I wouldn't completely write it off.
I'm going to keep it running for more samples, but so far Campflare looks great. I'll speculate that the short window of opportunity was due to someone rearranging their itinerary (not sure if it goes back as available when 'editing' a reservation) or an auto-reserve function or a quick acting human.
This raises some other questions, but so far for the original question of 'how do the free services perform and would chatters benefit from a local server' looks to be answered, but potentially there is something there for backcountry (more complex itineraries). As an aside, I kind of feel for the rec.gov API, it must be getting hammered by all these sites, but that is what it says it is there for.
Glacier Park Chat
