Visitation record set for Glacier Park

Last year turned out to be Glacier National Park’s  busiest season in its 104-year history. Final visitor numbers for 2014 put the Park’s annual visitation at 2,337,719, according to the National Park Service’s statistics office.

That figure tops the 2,200,048 visitors counted in 2010, which the Park had considered its busiest year.

Park spokeswoman Denise Germann said more sunny days in the summer months combined with a banner year for national parks across the U.S. boosted overall visitation to Glacier Park.

“It was a very busy year,” Germann said. “We’re seeing increased visitation across the National Park System. A lot of it is weather-dependent.”

Last year’s peak months were August and July, with record highs of 675,119 visitors in August and 699,650 visitors in July. It was so busy at times last summer that vehicles were waved through the West Entrance station because of backed-up traffic.

In September, Park superintendent Jeff Mow confirmed that traffic backups were so severe at West Glacier at times that vehicles were waved through the entrance gate without fee collections.

“That did occur, and it occurred on several occasions,” he said.

Mow added that the Montana Department of Transportation regarded traffic backed up all the way to West Glacier as an “untenable situation.”

Last year’s visitor total was an increase of 6.7 percent from 2013. Germann noted that both backcountry and frontcountry visitation increased from 2013.

Fewer people spent the night in the Park last year, however, with overnight stays dropping 4 percent to 364,476. Overnight stays with concession lodging dropped 7.8 percent, and recreational-vehicle overnight stays declined 6.8 percent.

Group camping saw a considerable jump in 2014, increasing more than 200 percent from the previous year.

Significantly more visitors entered Glacier Park at Camas and Polebridge, with traffic increasing by more than 20 percent at the Camas entrance and 18 percent at Polebridge.

West Glacier remained the busiest entrance station, with 1,070,590 people, a 6.8-percent increase over 2013. The St. Mary entrance station attracted 484,529 visitors, a drop of 2.9 percent from 2013. Many Glacier numbers were up 9.4 percent.

While the previous annual Glacier Park attendance record of 2,203,847 technically was set in 1983, Germann explained that after that year, Park officials changed the way visitation was estimated. The estimated average of visitors per vehicle was lowered, resulting in lower totals based on vehicle counts than those estimated 31 years ago.