Visitation Statistics

[zozeppelin]

I finally had some time to aggregate and review the visitation data. My interest mostly comes from my skepticism of the post-Covid actions. I'll keep adding and editing as I find time and interest. Hopefully others find this interesting and it can generate some good discussion.

First, some disclaimers:

• All data comes from nps.gov, what an amazing and likely unheralded job they do collecting and providing this information.
• Focus on last 10 years - felt like this was a relatively good range
• Covid 2020 and Howe Ridge Fire 2018 cut the road, as well as campground limitations in 2021
• Unknown how many Going to the Sun Road tickets were available per day (what was the target throttling level)
• Unknown how many people were turned away at the gate (potential visitors) as well as those that never came in the first place dude to lack of ticket, but perhaps those could be inferred by other areas increases and total visitation figures respectively
• Data is only available monthly, so August has been my month of focus, as a late Going to the Sun Road opening will heavily influence July numbers. This also doesn't allow for the granularity to see a shift from non-Going to the Sun Road areas to Going to the Sun Road once it opens.

How the data is generated:

• The park has sensors at each entrance that scan traffic - 24/7.
• Each vehicle is assumed to carry 2.9 people with a 7% deduct for non-recreational visitors
• Each campsite is assumed to have 2.5 people, or 3 people if an RV site
• Backcountry is based on actual people

So let's start with total visitors.


The first observation I had is that yes indeed there has been an increase in people visiting the park recently, but this really started around 2016, and has actually decreased since. I checked the 'counting procedure' documents and they didn't change in function (new document came out in 2017, but had the same factors).

So the park is averaging around 3 million visitors per year now. When do they arrive? Pretty much as expected June-September, with last two years seeing an increase in September while being lower June-August.


Where are they entering the park? As expected, mainly going to the sun road. Here one can see the 2017 east entrance outlier - I think this is an error. The takeaway is that the 'other 3' (Polebridge, Many Glacier, Two Medicine) add up to about the east entrance, which the west is 2.5x larger than.


This means that a small diversion from Going to the Sun due to access (tickets, road closed, or otherwise) is going to have a large impact on the 'other 3'. Here is a look at August yearly traffic, where the drop from previous highs can be seen on Going to the Sun Road, while the 'other 3' are so small in magnitude it is hard to assess.


So I took a deeper dive into the 'other 3'. What I did is average the numbers from 2016-2019 and took the difference from the measured values each year 2020-2022. Yes, this is cherrypicking the 'high years', but the park survived then so I thought that would be a good benchmark. I didn't include 2017 for the East entrance because oft the anomaly.


As well as a percentage basis, which is probably more meaningful from a capacity standpoint. Result here is that Many Glacier and Polebridge went down, without ticket system, and with potential non-ticketed overflow from Going to the Sun Road. Two medicine did see a big increase in 2021, but it reduced closer to average in 2022. Polebridge saw a big increase in 2020, but receded as well to below average in 2021 and 2022. This also shows Going to the Sun Road is


One other item of interest is camping. Once campers are in the park, unless they leave then they wouldn't be counted each day, but would be tying up resources (road, parking, trails, etc). During August, there were about 5500 people per day entering from the east and west combined. There are about 2500 front country campground people capacity, so the overcrowding isn't just the people at the gate, but the people inside as well. To that end, the front country wasn't fully open until 2022, so the utilization of the park was even lower in 2020 and 2021 than the entrance numbers would indicate compared to the averages. 2022 numbers weren't provided on the site, but hopefully those are closer to the 75,000/month capacity (2500 x 30).


And finally, not pertinent to this discussion, but my personal interest, so here are the backcountry numbers. There are 141 camp sites, so 564 people / day max, or 16,920 per month. Numbers below this don't necessarily imply no-shows, as actual camper numbers are used (could be less than 4 per site) and not all sites are necessarily reserved and/or permitted, but interesting nevertheless. One trend is the increased usage in September. Again no 2022 data, but 2021 is appreciably lower than the trend, with 2020 to be ignored as the east side wasn't open.

[paul]

Zozeppelin,

Thanks for taking the time to put this information together. How did you get the numbers for backcountry users? Also, could you change the color coding? It's hard to see the difference in some of the shades since I'm a bit color blind in the darker shades.

Thanks,
Paul

[zozeppelin]

Hi Paul,
Thanks for the feedback. The colors are Excel default, so it was a matter of laziness. Agree some of the darker blues are pretty close. I'll get those updated. The camping data was pulled from the same datasource: Link


Here is a look at the entrance status, and people for July and Aug the last several years. The syntax is Ticketed Entry Start Date (Month/Day), days of ticket validity, and hours of ticket requirement.


I should have noted in my original post that the Polebridge drop *could* be attributed to the addition of ticketed entry in 2022 - but the big drop actually occurred in 2021 back to typical levels, and the 2022 restrictions only dropped is slightly further. My conclusion here is that the uptick was due to the east side closure in 2020, along with inaugural Going to the Sun ticketed entry, where spurned and confused visitors went to the only other place open. Theory: Polebridge ticketed entry unnecessary when the east side is open.

Second trend is that the 'other 3' drop-off in August from July compared to the Going to the Sun Road remaining flat. I need to work the numbers here, but the difference in July and August, besides the tapering off due to school year starting, is the Going to the Sun Road opening. Theory: Going to the Sun Road closure pushes people to the other entrances, but once open, the other areas naturally decline in popularity thus do not require throttling - the restrictions are backwards, and should be 'up to' the road opening, not afterwards (7/1).

Finally, I'll note some nice to haves would be daily and hourly data. The daily data could help isolate the trends around Going to the Sun Road opening while filtering out the late season tapering. Hourly data could help segment traffic between ticketed entry and before/after hours entry, which could help demonstrate the effectiveness and utilization of ticketed entry. Other nice to haves would be historic parking lot fill times.

[paul]

Thanks,

I think your conclusions that the road restrictions are unnecessary in places like Two Medicine, and the North Fork once the Sun road is fully open. I noticed that in Two medicine this year in late August that there was no over use happening even with no one attending the entrance station. I don't think the parking lot was even a quarter full. It makes sense if the Sun road access is restricted then people will go other places. So probably not a great idea to restrict Two medicine when the Sun road is open.

Many Glacier would probably need some ticketing still but I think they really need to understand the data first before making the restrictions there.

Paul

[MarxMN]

Zozeppelin,

Interesting information - thanks for your work.

On the numbers of cars turned away the hunrgy Horse News quoted a park spokesperson as saying it was about 400 a day last year on the Going to the Sun Road. That quote is in about the tenth paragraph of the article at this link: https://hungryhorsenews.com/news/2022/d ... ations-al/

Bill

[zozeppelin]

I updated the colors, hopefully those are more readable.

I have a couple other items cooking, but in the meantime, here is a front country campground summary:

[zozeppelin]

Zozeppelin,

Interesting information - thanks for your work.

On the numbers of cars turned away the hunrgy Horse News quoted a park spokesperson as saying it was about 400 a day last year on the Going to the Sun Road. That quote is in about the tenth paragraph of the article at this link: https://hungryhorsenews.com/news/2022/d ... ations-al/

Bill

Hi Bill,
Thanks for pulling that data point.

First thought is that seemed like a lot, but when considering the average total daily traffic (250,000 relative max in peak months / 30 days = 8,000 vehicle's per day, so 400 is about 5%, not bad).

Then I got to digging into the ticketed entry #s. These are for this year (numbers are tickets per day and 2019 average August traffic, as the sky wasn't falling then):

• Two Medicine: 136, 600
• Going to the Sun Road: 906, 4467
• Many Glacier: 122, 950
• North Fork: 37, 241

Some comments:

• These are 'advanced' only, which is claimed to be 30-40% of total available, the remainder available 24 hours in advance (so multiply by 3) - reference link.
• Going to the Sun Road is a 3 day pass, so presumably that number is low trying to hit a rolling average, maybe multiply that by 2
• Would need to account for people arriving before/after ticket window, as well as those with reservations. I would suspect Going to the Sun Road would have the highest increase there due to accessibility and highest front country campground occupancy.

Observation is that Many Glacier and North Fork appear to be extremely shorted (50%), and to a lesser extent Two Medicine (30%).

[zozeppelin]

Thanks,

I think your conclusions that the road restrictions are unnecessary in places like Two Medicine, and the North Fork once the Sun road is fully open. I noticed that in Two medicine this year in late August that there was no over use happening even with no one attending the entrance station. I don't think the parking lot was even a quarter full. It makes sense if the Sun road access is restricted then people will go other places. So probably not a great idea to restrict Two medicine when the Sun road is open.

Many Glacier would probably need some ticketing still but I think they really need to understand the data first before making the restrictions there.

Paul

Hi Paul,
I did some further digging into the road closures and timing.

• In 2020, there were 29 closures, with 18 occurring in June - Link
• In 2021, park claims to have avoided closing Going to the Sun Road 35 times Link
• Could not find any references to closures after 2020, either to places with ticketed entry (Going to the Sun Road, North Fork) or those without (Two Medicine, Many Glacier) - although I do recall people reporting that.

In 2020, the park was reporting closures and openings on Twitter, so I pulled that data. The chart below shows the closures by date for the two locations (North Fork and Going to the Sun Road), along with their sublocations. I broke down the sublocations because the Entrance (West-In) only closed a handful of times as it was mostly handled upstream(West-LML, West-LM), and North Fork appeared to only close Bowman (NF-Bow) due to parking more frequently than the entire area at Polebridge (NF-PB). I designated 3 important dates: Independence Day, Labor Day, and Going to the Sun Road opening day (over Logan Pass).



Comments:

• These numbers align well with the numbers cited above (27 vs 29 closures).
• Interesting data because everything else is sampled monthly, this gives a peak at importance of holidays, weekends, and events (Going to the Sun Road Opening) with the improved granularity
• I recorded closure time, but haven't used this yet.
• Sometimes they communicated when the closure was lifted, so I could record closure duration. I'm going to see if I can use this later to estimate closure times for those missing data points.
• Many amplifying factors involved, such as Covid interest (international travel / indoor restrictions --> push to NPS) and closure of the East Side (Two Medicine, Many Glacier, and Going to the Sun Road including St Mary), along with limited front country camping available.
• The vertical gridlines represent weeks, with the grid being on a Monday, such that time just prior would be the weekend and time just after would be the weekday.

Conclusions:

• The Going to the Sun Road closures were dependent on Logan Pass not being open, with a secondary effect from Holidays - as seen by no road closures once Logan Pass opened.
• Of the Going to the Sun Road closures, a small minority were actually closed all the way back to the entrance, implying it wasn't a road issue, rather parking, such that ticketed entry shouldn't start at the entrance (yes logistics problems, but they pushed it back from St Mary) and the issue could be solved with an improved shuttle system.
• Majority of North Fork Closures were due to Bowman Lake parking - easy fix

Theory: Ticketed Entry only required in June and around Holidays. Also, increase that Bowman parking lot size and most importantly improve the shuttle system and the 'problem' will take care of itself.

[paul]

I suspect you are right about the ticketed entry for other parts of the park is only needed when the Sun road is closed. For Bowman lake, I think it would be difficult to increase the parking unless you use some of the area set aside for the beach or campsites. I wonder what the tipping point is for having too many vehicles at the lake or using that road. One of the nice things about that area is the quiet peacefulness of it.

Back in 2018 I had a permit for north fork and when I went to park my car at the BC parking area at Kintla lake there was only one spot left, so that area does fill up quickly. It's a pretty big parking area which really should never reach capacity if only BC campers are using it. So it was likely filled by day use people.

[zozeppelin]

Interesting article from Hungry Horse News.

Starts with the congressman asking for the road reservation requirement period to stop at 1 pm instead of 3 (which was reduced from 4 last year).

Then the intriguing nuggets start being spilled:

• Park has hired a PhD in visitor use management, who will be looking at the data - excellent!
• Two Medicine closed 22 times last year, averaging < 2 h
• Many Glacier closed 57 times last year, averaging 2.8 h

Good information here! I would speculate that Two Medicine closures were all prior to the Going to the Sun Road opening (late last year) and around Labor Day weekend.

Many Glacier closures would appear to be almost daily during peak season (unless count includes multiple times per day, which was the case looking at the data when it was announced on twitter), such that some limitations, shuttles or more parking would be necessary.

The really interesting missing piece remains the hourly data, to see how much of the overcrowding is occurring due to people entering prior to the time reservations are checked.

https://hungryhorsenews.com/news/2023/m ... k-reserva/

[zozeppelin]

Looks like the congressman’s initiative is gaining steam:

Link

Among other things, asking for east side limitations to be removed.

Also an audit on tickets and rec.gov contracts/renewals.

[paul]

The article says this near then end

Following the meeting, Zinke said he had three main priorities: allowing access without reservations prior to 6 a.m.; ending the period where reservations are needed at 1 p.m. rather than 3 p.m.; and dropping reservations as a requirement at the East Glacier entrances.

Isn't the first item already available? If you go the park gate before 6 am, you should have access since there should be no one manning the entrance gate.

[orin]

Paul,

The park is reconstructing GTTSR along Lake McDonald this year. The road will be closed before 6am. Apparently they aren’t going to let anyone through the West Entrance before then. There will also be several bridge replacements on the West side. Sounds like a good year to stay on the East side.

[paul]

Thanks Orin