Glacier Park visitation down again in June

Glacier National Park visitation was down for the fourth time in six months in June with the Crown of the Continent seeing 56,000 less visitors come through its gates than a year ago.

Discounting the pandemic year of 2020, the park saw its lowest numbers in June since 2016 with just 531,631 visitors, down from 588,158 a year ago.

The slow June has left the park down 8.74% from last year overall with 811,044 visitors so far in 2022. That’s down from 888,748 at this point last year.

The West Entrance saw a drop of close to 36,000 from last year’s numbers with the Going-to-the-Sun Road reservation system in effect since May 27 and a nightly construction clouse of the road since June 1.

The continued snow removal operations on the Going-to-the-Sun Road throughout the month of June were likely a factor in the reduced visitation numbers, with the road not opening in its entirety until July 13.

Visits to Polebridge, Camas and Many Glacier were down a combined 25,000 visitors.

While the overall visitation numbers in the park were down, there were several areas that saw increased visitation in June.

Backcountry visits were up nearly 1,700, almost double that of June last year. The reopening of Rising Sun this season helped concessionaire lodging more than double from last year with 25,088 stays in June.

St. Mary’s numbers were up close to 7,000, Two Medicine saw an increase of more than 5,000. The Walton/Goat Lick area saw an increase of more than 9,000 visitors over this time last year.