Glacier visits dip slightly, remain in Top-10

Rob Chaney

Glacier National Park remains a top-10 destination for tourists, although its visitation numbers have dipped slightly.

The million-acre mountain preserve welcomed 2,908,458 visitors in 2022, down 5.1% from the previous year. That reflected a reduction in visits during the winter and shoulder months of January, March, April, October, November and December, according to Glacier spokeswoman Gina Kerzman.

The West Glacier entrance on the park’s western end of the Going-to-the-Sun Road continues to draw the heaviest traffic, with 40% to 47% of entrances getting recorded there between 2017 and 2022. That doesn’t count 2020, when all Glacier’s eastern entrances were closed due to COVID pandemic restrictions on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation (which borders the park).

Visitation patterns have shifted slightly over the past five years. The imposition of ticketed entry in 2021, followed by the 2020 pandemic, make trends hard to analyze.

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However, interest in the Many Glacier and Two Medicine areas has grown, at the expense of entrances through the St. Mary gate. While the eastern end of the Going-to-the-Sun Road drew 30% of visitor entrances in 2017 (Glacier Park’s record year), that dropped to

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