Glacier visitation surges

With a fire-free summer, Glacier National park saw a surge in August visitation. The West Entrance was up 53 percent compared to last year, with 366,189 visitors going through the gates.

Last year by mid August, the Sun Road on the west side was only open to the foot of Lake McDonald because of the Howe Ridge Fire.

In 2017, it also closed in August due to the Sprague Creek Fire.

But this summer has seen timely rains and Glacier hasn’t had a significant wildfire. As such, visitation to the Park overall was up 15.6 percent, with total visitation for the month at 771,874. By month’s end, total visitation was 2,447,377, up 2% over last year.

With September being relatively warm and dry, the Park is on pace to breach the 3 million mark this year. Last year, even with the fires, it still saw just under 400,000 people.

In 2016, the last time Glacier had an August-September without a big wildfire, it saw just under 500,000 people.

There were some regions that saw dips in visitation. In Two Medicine — just under 50,000 people visited Two Medicine in August. Last year 57,345 visited Two Medicine in August. Many Glacier was also down 11 percent, but St. Mary was up 7 percent.

Visitation to Walton-Goat Lick was down as well, though that area isn’t a major attraction, unless mountain goats are feeding on the nearby cliffs. Usually by August the goats have moved to higher terrain.