The people who run the helicopter tour companies — two are based in West Glacier — think the impact is vastly overstated.

“Fifteen seconds after we go over, you’d never know we were there,” says Jim Kruger, owner of Kruger Helicop-Tours. “When they ban Harley-Davidson motorcycles, they can talk to me. Have you ever heard a group of them going up Going-to-the-Sun Road?”

'Still no peace'

McClelland’s letter says 30 years after noise pollution created by helicopter tours in Glacier was identified as a priority problem at congressional hearings, 17 years after it was listed as a critical issue in Glacier’s General Management Plan, and 16 years after passage of the National Parks Air Tour Management Act, nothing has changed.

“We still have no peace in Glacier,” McClelland said. “Today, more than 500 helicopters per month fly sorties over our nation’s only international peace park and World Heritage Site.”

Only one quarter of 1 percent of the 2.3 million people who visit Glacier each year take a helicopter tour, according to McClelland.