Glacier National Park May Soon End 50-Year Snowmobile Ban
Glacier National Park may soon end its 50-year snowmobile ban for a small group of residents: people who own private property inside park boundaries.
At a North Fork Interlocal meeting last month, Park Superintendent David Roemer told residents that officials are exploring special-use permits allowing these “inholders” limited, non-commercial motorized winter access including possible snowmobile use and snowplowing to reach their homes. About 80 private residences sit along Lake McDonald, with a handful more near Big Prairie on the North Fork.
Snowmobiles have been barred from nearly all uses in the park since 1975, except for search and rescue operations. Once snow piles up, inholders have historically been limited to reaching their properties by foot or ski, a restriction that has fueled decades of frustration and at least one federal lawsuit. Landowner Jack McFarland, backed by the Mountain States Legal Foundation, spent years fighting in court for winter motorized access to his property near the Polebridge entrance in the early 2000s, but ultimately lost. Homeowners along Grist Road, off Camas Road, have raised similar complaints.
Roemer said any new permits would be strictly non-commercial, though the park is also weighing whether to plow certain closed roads. The park is evaluating whether special use permits could be an appropriate mechanism to provide winter access for landowners and is still studying the environmental and operational impacts of the options on the table.
The debate comes as Glacier’s private inholdings have shifted from modest family summer cabins to multimillion-dollar properties, a change driven by the park’s soaring popularity and increasingly mild winters that make year-round access more feasible than in decades past.
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