Another Month, Another Visitation Record in Yellowstone National Park

Another month, another visitation record at Yellowstone National Park.

Warm weather and the end of road projects were cited as the main reasons the park saw 189,072 visitors in October, an increase of more than 50 percent from a year earlier, when the road closure between Madison Junction and Norris no doubt deterred travelers.

The bullish October pushed the park's year-to-date visitation to 3,605,978, a 10.4 percent increase from the same period in 2009, park officials announced.

With the record high, October became the fifth month in a row to record a high in visitation, the officials said.

Visitation figures were up at all five park entrances when compared to 2009 levels. The West Entrance at West Yellowstone, Montana, remains the park’s busiest, with nearly 80,600 visitors in October; more than double the next highest numbers which were at the North Entrance, near Gardiner, Montana.