Glacier shatters visitation record for July

Glacier National Park shattered the park record for recreational visits in July set last year. Park visitation was at 818,481 people last month — up about 14 percent from last year’s record of 689,000 in July.

To date, 1.516 million have visited the park through July, with most of August and September still ahead.

The Park Service is celebrating its 100th anniversary this year and in addition to regional promotional campaigns, there’s also been a nationwide campaign to get people to visit parks. Coupled with cheap fuel prices and good weather, people have been doing just that.

To put this year’s numbers in perspective, in 2008, Glacier saw 1.8 million visitors for the entire year. The Park should easily break that mark by the end of August.

Before the year started, Park officials had predicted a busy summer, expecting an increase of visitation of about 20 percent over last year.

St. Mary’s saw the largest increase in visitation over last year — a full 50 percent. That makes sense because the Reynolds Creek Fire shut down the east side of the Going-to-the-Sun Road last year after the blaze sprouted over the highway on July 22, burning about 8,000 acres.

This year there have been just a few very small fires in Glacier and rainstorms Sunday helped quell the fire danger even further. Overnights stays are all up as well. Tent overnight stays lead the numbers, with 43,496 people camping in frontcountry campgrounds in tents. Backcountry camping is also up about 4 percent over last year with 11,143 people camping in Glacier’s backcountry through July.