Glacier Park sets visitation record

Glacier National Park set a record for visitation in 2010, the year of its centennial celebration. The final tally for the year estimates 2,226,757 recreational visits to the Park.

That’s a 9.6 percent increase from 2009, and the 2010 numbers eclipse the previous record for visitation in 1983.

The record numbers don’t mean that 2.2 million people actually turned the gates. For example, a single person that visited Glacier several times would get counted as multiple visits. The Park also uses a multiplier when counting vehicles that go through the gates, which makes the numbers a bit of a guess.

Hard numbers from 2010 include:

• 101,600 people stayed overnight in tents, an increase of 0.2 percent from 2009.

• 104,832 people stayed in recreational vehicles, a decrease of 1.4 percent from 2009.

• 30,680 people stayed in backcountry camps, a 6.3 percent increase over 2009.

• 133,068 people stayed in the Park’s lodges and hotels, an increase of 2.7 percent from 2009.