BC Walk-in Availability

[smahurin]

Wow, I just looked at the walk-in availability as of this morning and am amazed at how "open" everything is. There are very few full spots. My wife and some friends are heading up this weekend for a bit, and now I'm wishing more than ever to join them!

I admittedly don't typically pay a ton of attention to the availability as I typically try and grab a few lottery iteneraries and what I get typically constitutes my glacier backcountry trips with the rest of the time spent day hiking. But maybe I'll have to reassess as I assumed most of the BC usage wouldn't really slow down till after labor day. Are the BC camp spots typically this "open" in late august or is this more of an anomaly? Some of the choice spots like stoney, boulder pass, granite, and elizabeth foot have availability every day this week and even other choice spots like sperry have significant availability after today. I just figured it would be harder to get some of those on a walk-in especially the day of.

[liketohike]

I think some of it might be weather related as there's rain with cool temperatures in the forecast for the next few days, even high elevation snow:

"National Weather Service Missoula MT
403 AM MDT Thu Aug 21 2014

...Rain, high elevation snow, 20 degrees below normal temperatures
Friday into Saturday...

.DISCUSSION...Another round of showers and thunderstorms are
expected today across the region. The biggest threats with these
storms will be lightning, heavy rain and small hail.

The bigger story continues to be the weather system that will
bring various fall-like impacts to central Idaho and western
Montana. As the upper level system approaches later tonight,
showers will begin to develop and then increase in coverage with
time on Friday. Also possible gusty northeast winds will be
possible at times across area lakes and through canyons along the
Continental Divide. These winds are expected to increase in
strength especially by Saturday morning and there could be a 1 to
2 foot chop on Flathead Lake with possible wind gusts over 20 mph.
As the upper level low tracks across central Idaho Friday night,
it will tap into some juicy atmospheric moisture over central and
eastern Montana. Rainfall rates could be moderate to heavy at
times possibly triggering rock slides in a few areas. Snow levels
will be coming down along the Continental Divide with heavy
precipitation by Saturday morning. Logan Pass at 6,646 ft. could
see a mixture of rain and snow for a period Friday night through
Saturday morning. It will be rather raw in the back country with
steady precipitation and colder than normal temperatures.

One change this forecast update was to increase the chance for
precipitation across Clearwater and Idaho Counties in Idaho
Saturday as rainfall wraps around the low.

The intense precipitation diminishes by Saturday night, but there
will still be a chance for showers. There will be a chance for
showers on Sunday while temperatures will moderate slowly.

Next week...The tail end of moisture from the weekends major
precipitation event will impact the Northern Rockies Monday.
Expect a bounce back to near normal temperatures Tuesday through the
rest of the week. Normal high temps are in the lower 80s. Expect a
general westerly and mainly dry flow through the middle to end of
the week with a potential for a few weak systems to bring
scattered precipitation. Confidence for any kind of coverage or
amount of precipitation is highly uncertain."

[Selkie]

Looks like the August anomaly/inversion/whatever is right on time.

[pitamakan]

Though the most congested parts of the park are still going to stay busy for a while, there's always a perceptible slowdown starting in about mid-August, since families with school-age kids often need to start heading home about this time.

And interestingly, though Glacier's overall visitation is at record levels this year, the park says that overnight backcountry use is down about 15% from last summer.

[smahurin]

I'm sure you are right that the weather has an impact. I guess while I always check on the weather for my trips, I still go. The unpredictable weather in the park is just something you have to deal. As with many here, I've been rained on, snowed on, hailed on, had 90* days and 25* nights in the backcountry during july and August and I just got into backpacking recently. I'm sure others more experienced have seen far more/worse. You just never know so might as well go and have a blast regardless of what nature throws your way.

Though the most congested parts of the park are still going to stay busy for a while, there's always a perceptible slowdown starting in about mid-August, since families with school-age kids often need to start heading home about this time.

And interestingly, though Glacier's overall visitation is at record levels this year, the park says that overnight backcountry use is down about 15% from last summer.

That is really interesting. It has seemed that front country camping has been harder to come by this year, but I wondered if I was jsut imagining that. Wierd that BC visitation would be down at the same time.