Tourist industry runs blitz: The park is still open

“We’re still open, and there’s plenty to do.” That’s the message from the tourism industry in Northwest Montana to the rest of the world.

In the wake of the Reynolds Creek Fire, hotels and campgrounds in and around Glacier National Park have been flooded with calls from worried tourists asking whether the Montana landmark will stay open as the wildfire plays out on the eastern side of the park.

Hotel owners are trying to talk callers out of changing their plans, while Glacier officials emphasized that only a small part of the 1,718-square-mile park is closed as the flames chew though parched conifer-topped ridges on its eastern side.

The blaze has shut down nearly half of the heavily trafficked Going-to-the-Sun Road, and officials were helping reroute tourists planning to visit attractions along the roadway to other scenic areas, park spokeswoman Denise Germann said.

“I think what we’re offering visitors is a completely different experience throughout the park,” Germann told The Associated Press on Friday. “So many people rely on the Going-to-the-Sun Road, but you and I know there is so much more to Glacier.”

Kelsey Utterback, a 19-year-old University of Iowa student, had planned to stay at the Rising Sun Campground when her family visits from Chicago in two weeks. The site has been evacuated, but they’re still planning to go to Glacier, she said. They’re looking at campgrounds on the park’s western side, far from the blaze.

“Right now, we’re just worried about when the fire will end,” she said. “We don’t really want to go when it’s still out there, but it’s kind of easier for us to change our plans considering we didn’t make any reservations.”

The fire was unchecked and estimated at 6 square miles Friday, though fire spokeswoman Jennifer Costich said new information would soon provide a more accurate size. Some 300 firefighters dug fire lines, cleared debris and tried to stop the blaze from spreading northeast toward populated areas.

Glacier National Park was having a banner year before the first plume of smoke started rising Tuesday. It is the 10th-most-visited park in the National Park Service system, despite its remote location.

Visitor numbers from the first part of 2015 showed Glacier was on track to beat last year’s record of 2.3 million tourists. But the main tourist season, measured from the June 19 opening of the scenic Going-to-the-Sun Road until its planned closure Sept. 20, is a brief 13 weeks.

Any disruption in that window can hurt the tourism-driven businesses around the park that took in $193 million from visitors last year.

Tourism industry leaders like Lisa Jones, public relations manager for the Whitefish Convention and Visitor Bureau, have aggressively taken to social media sites to remind everyone that the park is open and that fire is part of the experience of being in the forested West and Montana.

“We have been through this before and we will go through it again. Visitors can still enjoy their vacations to our region while we face the challenges (and benefits) of wildfire... if we provide current information for their safety while also sharing factual information that will provide a positive travel experience,” she wrote in an email to members of the news media.