Glacier visitation down about 10% for June

By CHRIS PETERSON

Hungry Horse News

Glacier National Park’s June visitation was down about 10% from last year, as the park saw a soggy start to summer and the Going-to-the-Sun Road didn’t open until mid-July because of it.

All told the park saw about 529,000 visitors. By the end of June, it saw 807,038 visitors for the year, which is down about 9% from last year.

Total overnight stays, however, are up over last year, as more campgrounds and facilities were open. Total overnight stays were up almost 29% with 67,353 stays.

The one thing that dropped dramatically was backcountry camping, as either heavy snow or rain fell most of the month.

Backcountry camping was down 41% with 2,382 getting permits to camp overnight.

Another significant drop in visitation was at Polebridge, as the Park implemented the first year of the reservation system for the Polebridge entrance to the Park on May 27.

As such, visitation to Polebridge was down 38%. About 14,700 people visited the North Fork entrance to Glacier, as opposed to 23,752 the year before.

Even with the down numbers, June was still one of the top five busiest months in Park history.

The busiest June ever was 2017 when nearly 621,000 people visited Glacier.