2018 Backcountry Permit Buzz

[tibber]

Went back thru and did it again but it is not processing it. Tried again on different tab and it says it can't process two at the same time and now I'm getting FORM_SCHEDULE_TIME_CONSTRAINT_PARSING_ERROR Not Found. Hopefully the second one is just held up. Not sure what to do... whether to come out of that second one.
so I came out of that one and started again and am now getting: Processing more than one form or bill in one browser is not supported.

closed browser, went back in but now my time stamp is 10:17

[Jimmy]

Kept getting kicked out. Form froze up over and over......Disaster. Didn't get through until 10:14am

[PeteE]

Went back thru and did it again but it is not processing it. Tried again on different tab and it says it can't process two at the same time and now I'm getting FORM_SCHEDULE_TIME_CONSTRAINT_PARSING_ERROR Not Found. Hopefully the second one is just held up. Not sure what to do... whether to come out of that second one.
so I came out of that one and started again and am now getting: Processing more than one form or bill in one browser is not supported.

This has to be the WORST system ever.
I had my form all filled out and ready, but the "system" kept me going in circles.
If I had the time, I would drive out to the BC Office this morning give Brian McKeon an EAR full about this shi*** system in person.
I'm done with this advance reservation system.
I'll just take my chances and get a walk up when I want to go.

I feel for those of you who need an advance reservation.
You should write to the BC Office about your experience.

pete

Brian McKeon runs the BC Office at GNP
Phone number is

406 888 7857

[sbosecker]

I attempted to make an advanced reservation for a backcountry permit at Glacier National Park this morning at 10:00 am. I purposefully went to a location that had an extremely high speed internet connection to do this transaction. Everything was fine until about 3 minutes prior to 10 am. At that time I noticed the pages of the form I had filled out were not refreshing as quickly as earlier... there was a second or two lag. At about 5 seconds after 10 I pushed the continue button and got a "page unavailable" or something to that effect. I attempted to complete this form for the next 17 minutes getting "page unavailable" or "spinning wheels" over and over again. Finally I got through and completed the transaction.
I'm fairly confident that, due to this SNAFU, I won't get my request.

Scott

[paul]

I had the same issues as you guys. The system definitely has problems handling high traffic. If they are going to have an online reservation system, it needs to handle high traffic better.

[BombDiggityNate]

Hi all. I registered for an account just to say I had the same problem as all of you. It wouldn't accept a credit card payment. I had to go back twice and eventually paid by bank account and that went through at 10:08. I gave 4 itinerary options with the willingness to have campsites changed or directions reversed. For those of you who have gone through this stressful process before, how worried should I be?

Also thanks for this great forum; it was a real resource for me in the planning stages.

[joybird]

Yup. Same thing here. Things slowed down a few minutes before 10 but I was able to get to the last page of my form and wait there, index finger at the ready. At 10:00:02 I hit "continue", thinking I'd get to the payment page of the form and...server dropped the connection and it completely kicked me off the system! Had to go back to square one and start over, but, as others experienced the screens froze and it kicked me off a couple more times. Finally finished the submission at 10:10:11.

I totally don't understand why they don't let people submit their forms over a period of a week or two and then just let the computer randomize the entries. This set-up is not only frustrating, but it skews the results towards people with fastest internet and people who don't have, say, a JOB that they have to be at at 10:00am on March 15th.

Ah well. Good luck, everyone!


PS BombDiggity...it all depends on what route (how popular) you applied for and how wide a window of dates you were willing to accept. The wider the window, the better the chances....

[sbosecker]

I attempted to make an advanced reservation for a backcountry permit at Glacier National Park this morning at 10:00 am. I purposefully went to a location that had an extremely high speed internet connection to do this transaction. Everything was fine until about 3 minutes prior to 10 am. At that time I noticed the pages of the form I had filled out were not refreshing as quickly as earlier... there was a second or two lag. At about 5 seconds after 10 I pushed the continue button and got a "page unavailable" or something to that effect. I attempted to complete this form for the next 17 minutes getting "page unavailable" or "spinning wheels" over and over again. Finally I got through and completed the transaction.
I'm fairly confident that, due to this SNAFU, I won't get my request.

Scott

I MIGHT have been able to get my permit earlier but at about 3 minutes into the process I was able to finally submit a "payment type" page. I watched the "spinning wheel" for 10 minutes before I started the whole process again.

Last year I got kicked out for "submitting multiple requests" when I encountered a similar situation and, when nothing happened at this same point in Pay.gov, pushed the "NEXT" button again. That's why I waited so long to reattempt.

Even 13 minutes after 10 am Pay.gov was having issues with handling my request but eventually I completed the process. 17 minutes 28 seconds to complete something I had pre-populated a week ago and had all payement information in my account profile.

I sent an email to Glacier NP with the details and respectfully suggested that if Pay.gov cannot handle the scale of this process they find a different approach.

Scott

Scott

[sbosecker]

...I sent an email to Glacier NP with the details and respectfully suggested that if Pay.gov cannot handle the scale of this process they find a different approach.

Scott

I filled out the on-line form at Glacier NP's web site. Not visible during the process but based upon the response from Glacier the email address was:

glac_questions@nps.gov


Pretty quick initial response from Glacier NP:

Hi Scott,


I am forwarding your email regarding the backcountry reservation system to the Superintedent's Office.
Please let me know if you have

​any questions.

Teagan Tomlin

Visitor Services Assistant
Glacier National Park
nps.gov/glac
facebook.com/GlacierNPS
twitter - @glaciernps
http://www.flickr.com/photos/glaciernps

[PeteE]

Scott
You should resend it with a copy of this chat page

pete

I'm too pissed off to do anything right now

[mfster]

I had the same issue with the pay.gov crashing! Got kicked out and then the pages wouldn't load. Didn't submit until 10:09.

[sbosecker]

Scott
You should resend it with a copy of this chat page

pete

I'm too pissed off to do anything right now

Pete,

I did add a link to Glacier National Park Chat and mentioned that there were several posts that noted similar issues to what I described.

However, I suggest others send their observations of this process, respectfully & with a concise description of their issues, to the email address I noted previously.

glac_questions@nps.gov

I wish I had taken a video of the process... posting a video on the internet seems to be the best way to get action in today's world. Ha!

Best regards,

Scott

[NDjason]

Sad to hear that so many people had issues again this year. I ended up getting it in pretty painlessly, from an old laptop over public (low speed) wifi. Their server must not be prepared or capable of handling the kind of traffic they are hit with when they open the gate. Hopefully things will end up working out.

[teapot57]

This will make you all feel better! After getting kicked out and dealing with error messages until 8:08 MT, I had to leave the house to drive my son to school. I had no problem submitting when I got back.

I have a timestamp of 10:29:27!

[Syrio]

Its not an issue of internet speed but pay.gov's being unable to handle the traffic. Its really not the fault of the Glacier NPS staff either. Although they should change the process if they know the current system really can't act the way its supposed to. Having everyone submit and then doing a random lottery is likely the fairest solution until pay.gov is able to handle the traffic.

For example North Cascades process also opened today but they do a lottery system. It doesn't make much sense to have multiple NPS sites opening their process (though they're different processes) on the same day either.