We came mid afternoon without booking ahead and had no problems getting tickets for the next tram up the mountain. The park gate will tell you what kind of wait there is if you haven't pre-booked. You do have to pay for parking at the gate too $8 when we were there (Feb 2020). The ride up only takes a few minutes and the tram cars are quite large. Very unique in that the floor revolves twice as you go up to the top. There are only a couple other trams that use this type of revolving car. The top of the mountain is a park with lots of hiking trails and a little interpretive center. There is also a restaurant and gift shop at the top so you can make it a day long adventure if you like. There was a snow blizzard when we arrived at the top so we didn't venture outside. Make sure you have the right clothing as the temperature at the base can be quite different than the top, when we were there it was 80 at the base and below 30 at the top. Overall a very fun experience, a fun ride up and down, tram operators were great and had lots of good information about the tram, the mountain and the history. As I said you can make it a day long adventure or just a quick little outing like we did, probably only spent an hour there but thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.