Ticket for Going-to-the-Sun Road

Going-to-the-Sun Road is the most scenic road inside the Glacier National Park. To limit the number of visitors on the road during the day, starting on 5/28/2021, it requires a ticket to get in during rush hours (6am to 5pm). The tickets are being sold only online or via telephone.

 

The requirement is -- you can only purchase your ticket 2 days prior to the arrival date, and the ticket sale starts at 8am MDT. Once purchased, the ticket is good for 7 days.

 

For our trip, the arrival date at the park was 6/13/21.  So, by definition, if we call or go online on 6/11/21 at 8am MDT, we should get our ticket.  Trying to smart out others, I started purchasing the ticket on 6/10/21 for the arrival date of 6/12/21. I thought in case something went wrong on 6/11, at least I could one more chance.

 

I thought my plan was more thorough than many other's.  If it failed on 6/10, I could still still have another chance on 6/11, and we’d have no problem getting the ticket for our trip.  The reality was -- I totally didn’t realize that this simple task was “mission impossible.”

 

On the morning of 6/10, I was ready by 7:50am MDT. Got everything set up perfectly, and saw 145 available tickets for sale. Because it was before 8am, they were available, but not being released. 

 

At 7:57am, I triple checked the ticket count, still 145 available. At 7:58am, I started the purchasing process, it said tickets not released, the sales wouldn’t start until 8am.  7:59am, same process, same response.  8am, I clicked, initially got the same response, then 1 second later, all 145 tickets became 0 instantly.

 

I called the customer service number at 8:05am.  The agent told me all tickets were sold out.  With total disbelief, I asked about the best ways to secure the ticket for my effort tomorrow. She simply told me “It’s first come, first serve.”

 

To prepare for 6/11 -- the day of the real event, considering the seriousness of the issue at hand, we decided to take the “divide and conquer” approach, with multiple devices and multiple phone calls tomorrow starting at 7:58am.

 

As precise as we could possibly be, we followed through on our plan the next morning, June 11. Different methods, but the same unthinkable result -- the number of tickets on the computer screen changed from 145 to 0 instantly.  

 

At the same time, one of my jobs was to purchase by phone.  I started calling at 7:57am (while monitoring my laptop's online purchase site at the same time), the message said “We are currently closed. We’ll be open at 8am.” Called again at 7:59am, same message…

 

8am came, I called right on time. The agent picked up the phone. I told her I was trying to buy the Going-to-the-Sun Road ticket. She checked and said "They were all gone."  Wow, another dose of disbelief. I asked “How could 145 tickets be sold out within a split of a second?” She replied: “Well, it’s 8:02am already!”

 

Because our flight was early in the morning on 6/12, we couldn’t repeat the same strenuous process again that day. Looked like our chance to get the ticket for our trip was quickly reduced to 0%.

 

We arrived in Kalispell on 6/12. The morning of 6/13 was our only chance to try again before heading into the park and losing our cell signals. 

 

7:55am of 6/13 arrived. We were ready as usual. But this time, with yet another method. We set our iPhone digital clock to an analog clock so we could see seconds instead of just minutes. At 7:59:59 second (instead of 8am), we clicked the magical button -- GOT it!!  Wow, what a blood pressure raising event!!

Attached is the ever-so-precious TICKET!!  To protect personal information, I hid the ticket holder's name.