If the near-perfect summer weather, traffic jams, and record numbers of visitors swarming into Glacier National Park over the last six months are any indication, this July will be the busiest month in the park’s 106-year history.

The National Park Service’s number-crunchers will release the official monthly total in early August, but both statistically and anecdotally, the crowds in Glacier are reaching unprecedented levels.

Responders to a pair of simultaneous medical emergencies on the popular Highline Trail recently were thwarted by the throng of hikers blocking the way for stretcher-bearers. Instead emergency workers had to hoist the injured patients out by helicopter.

According the park’s daily public transit report, the shuttle system logged more than 3,000 riders on 15 of its first 20 days in operation this year. During the record shuttle season of 2010, ridership reached that total just 12 times over the course of the entire season.

And already, the gatekeepers at the park’s West Glacier entrance have had to “flush the system” multiple times, letting vehicles roll through unchecked when the lines of those waiting to get in back all the way up to the bridge over the Middle Fork of the Flathead River.

Glacier Park spokesman Tim Rains attributed the visitation spike to July’s mild, sunny weather, cheap gas prices, a widely advertised centennial campaign by the National Park Service and the absence of thick smoke and large wildfires that began plaguing the park at this time last year.

“Campgrounds are filling up a half hour earlier than last year, so visitors coming to the park should expect higher wait times,” he said. “We’re seeing people parking alongside the roads in places we haven’t seen them parking before ... We are at capacity in a lot of ways.”

Even Apgar Visitor Center’s 200-space parking lot has been filling up almost daily, he added.

Beginning with the opening of Going-to-the-Sun Road to vehicle traffic, visitation in the park skyrockets through the brief alpine summer. In the past decade, the four-month stretch from June through September has accounted for an average of 87 percent of the park’s annual visitation.

In all but one of the past 10 years, July was the most popular month for Glacier, recording the two highest-volume months of all time in 2014 and 2015. Through June (up 9 percent over the first six months of 2015), the visitor count is on pace to break the park’s annual visitation record for the third year in a row.

The visitor surge has continued in July. Wait times at shuttle stops are frequently hitting the three-hour mark and the first-come, first-served camp sites are filling up fast.

Rains likened his own experience at the popular Many Glacier Campground last weekend to camping in a city.

“I could not believe the amount of people — they’re everywhere,” he said. “People are definitely here.”

Park staffers also believe that more visitors are coming from urban areas than usual this year, owing to the nationwide boost in advertising during the Park Service’s centennial year, including the “Find Your Park” campaign. Rains added that guides and rangers speaking with the visiting city-dwellers aren’t getting the grumbling they’ve come to expect from locals braving the summer masses.

“They don’t know any different,” he said. “It’s interesting as they talk to them, they’re OK with the crowds, for the most part. They’re OK with the wait times as long as this is a system we’re going to choose and a system that works.”

That said, there’s still hope for those seeking a quieter experience in Glacier. Despite the midday spikes in traffic, the early morning and late evening hours are still relatively mellow, with short waits at the entrances and relatively few traffic jams on the roads and trails.

Rains said he recommends the popular Hidden Lake Overlook in the evening, when parking spaces at Logan Pass are typically plentiful and the twilight provides a different view of the park’s dramatic landscape.

“It’s quiet. It’s really a nice wilderness experience in the park, and it’s funny that you can say that when you’re talking about the highest-visitation time of year,” he said. “My suggestion is to change your behavior patterns on how you visit the parks, and you’ll have a very different experience.”

Reporter Sam Wilson can be reached at 758-4407 or by email at swilson@dailyinterlake.com.