Yellowstone National Park has been closed due to floods that have washed away roads and bridges in America’s first national park, and KGVO News has learned that Glacier National Park is experiencing its own challenges with minor flooding this spring.

Public Information Officer at Glacier National Park Gina Kerzman provided these details regarding areas that are currently closed due to flood conditions.

“We do have some trails that are currently closed due to flooding,” began Kerzman. “Campground loop A at Saint Mary Campground is closed because of flooding and Avalanche Lake hike which is a very popular hiking glacier is closed because of flooding, and for our quarter circle bridge, any of the trails that you access via the quarter circle bridge will be off limits because that bridge is closed due to flooding. The inside North Fork Road also has flooding and is closed from Polebridge to Logging Creek.”

Due to its elevation, Kerzman said Glacier National Park still has issues with snow, even in mid-June.

“The weather right now in Glacier is rather cool,” she said. “We are getting rain at the lower elevations and snow at the higher elevations. The weather continues to challenge our road crews in being able to open Going to the Sun Road. “We've had several days where avalanche conditions were dangerously high and crews weren't able to work as much as we had hoped. We'd also had some areas that have slid (experienced snow slides) several times. Triple arches have slid three times and three times the crew has had to dig it out.”

June is also the time when bears have emerged from their dens, many with cubs. Kerzman said hikers in Glacier National Park must be ‘bear aware’ and prepared.

“Visitors definitely want to take bear spray with them and be very cautious about bear activity,” she said. “We do have a lot of bear activity at the lower elevations because of the snow still being at the higher elevations. The bears haven't moved up to the higher elevations as early as they usually would so there is a lot of bear activity down below.”

Kerzman said, as with all national parks, there are crowded conditions, so making reservations well ahead of your visit will help eliminate frustration and delays.

“Reservations for Going to the Sun Road and the North Fork area are available on recreation.gov 24 hours in advance,” she said. “I would recommend that visitors make sure to set up their accounts on recreation.gov ahead of time and be on at eight o'clock in the morning the day before they'd like to enter the park for the best chances of getting a vehicle reservation.”

The iconic Going to the Sun road has not yet been fully opened at Glacier National Park, and it is not known how many visitors that had reservations for Yellowstone Park will be heading to Glacier National Park instead.