Glacier National Park announces closure to follow local COVID-19 health guidance

Press release

WEST GLACIER — Glacier National Park is announcing additional modifications to operations in response to guidance from Flathead County, Glacier County, Blackfeet Nation and the State of Montana.

“The National Park Service listened to the concerns from our state, county, and tribal partners and, based on current health guidance, temporarily closed the park,” said Glacier Superintendent Jeff Mow. “We will continue to work with our state, county, and tribal partners as this crisis continues and we will coordinate with them on when it will be safe to reopen the park.”

The health and safety of the park’s visitors, employees, volunteers, and partners is its number one priority. The National Park Service is working service-wide with federal, state and local authorities to closely monitor the COVID-19 pandemic.

Effective at 5 p.m. Saturday, Glacier National Park was closed to all park visitors until further notice. No visitor access is permitted to the park.

U.S. Highway 2 inside the park boundary will remain open. Park staff members said they will notify the public when the park resumes full operations and will provide updates on its website and social media channels.

The NPS encourages people to take advantage of the many digital tools already available to explore Glacier National Park, including:

Glacier online at https://www.nps.gov/glac/index.htm and via

• webcams at https://www.nps.gov/glac/learn/photosmultimedia/webcams.htm,

• audio tours at https://www.nps.gov/glac/learn/photosmultimedia/going-to-the-sun-road-audio-tour.htm,

• photo galleries at https://www.nps.gov/glac/learn/photosmultimedia/photogallery.htm, and

• videos at https://www.nps.gov/glac/learn/photosmultimedia/park-videos.htm .

Updates about NPS operations will be posted on http://www.nps.gov/coronavirus . People can check with http://www.nps.gov/glac for specific details about park operations.

Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks, also citing concerns from local government officials, announced they were closing last week.