Glacier makes big correction to September visitation numbers
A hiker walks a ridge in the high country of Glacier National Park.
Hungry Horse News
Glacier National Park significantly corrected its September visitation numbers. Spokeswoman Gina Kerzman said recently that a problem with counters on the Camas Road and West Entrance, in essence, doubled the actual count.
So instead of reporting 710,661 visitors in September, the actual count was closer to 533,388, which is still the most ever for that month.
Visitation for November was down about 10.4% compared to 2020, though the Park will still have its second highest annual visitation ever.
Glacier reported 26,300 visitors in November, but had 3.063 million visitors through the month.
That’s second only to 2017, when the Park saw 3.305 million visitors. In 2019, it saw 3.049 million.
This year, however, Glacier instituted a ticketed entry system for the Going-to-the-Sun Road corridor during peak hours from Memorial Day through Labor Day.
Despite the ticket requirement, folks still flocked to the park. While the tickets acted as crowd control during the day, people either showed up early — before 6 a.m., or after 5 p.m., when they didn’t need a ticket.
Glacier will implement a ticketed entry again this year for the Sun Road corridor. It also added a ticket requirement to get into the Polebridge entrance.
The tickets will be required once again beginning the Memorial Day weekend. But this year, they’ve extended it to a week beyond Labor Day. Tickets aren’t available for 2022 yet.