Glacier's big year: 2,337,719 visitors

Glacier National Park just wrapped up the busiest season in the park’s 104-year history.

Final visitor numbers for 2014 put Glacier’s annual visitation at 2,337,719, according to the National Park Service’s statistics office.

That topped the 2,200,048 visitors in 2010, which the park had considered its busiest year.

Glacier Park spokeswoman Denise Germann said extra sunshine in the summer months combined with a banner year for parks across the country boosted overall visitation to the park.

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

The record-breaking 2014 was anchored by peak months in August and July, with record highs of 675,119 visitors in August and 699,650 visitors in July.

During the summer, it was so busy at times that motorists were waved through the West Entrance station because of backed-up traffic.

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

“That did occur and it occurred on several occasions,” he said, explaining that the Montana Department of Transportation regards it as an “untenable situation” when traffic is backed up all the way into the town of West Glacier.

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 Glacier last year, with overnight stays dropping 4 percent to 364,476. Concession lodging overnight stays 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 the 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 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 park-goers per vehicle was lowered, resulting in lower totals based on vehicle counts than those estimated 31 years ago.