With nearly 4.5 million people having visited Yellowstone so far this year, heading out onto Yellowstone Lake has been a great way to avoid crowds/Kurt Repanshek file
Editor's note: The numbers for September visitation and year-to-date visitation were corrected Thursday by Yellowstone staff to add 9,383 recreational visits to reflect an under-counting at one entrance station.
More than 4 million visitors have entered Yellowstone National Park so far this year, a record for the park and a mark that is challenging staff in managing the crowds.
"Never in Yellowstone's history have we seen such substantial visitation increases in such a short amount of time," said Superintendent Cam Sholly. "We will continue working with our teams and partners to develop and implement appropriate short- and long-term actions for managing increasing visitation across the park. My thanks to our teams here for working through a record visitation year, especially with the continued workforce challenges presented by COVID-19."
Pushing the park past the 4-million-visitor mark was September's visitation of 882,078, a 5 percent increase from a year earlier and a substantial 27 percent increase from September 2019, the park announced Wednesday. That pushed the park's year-to-date visitation total to 4,472,982 recreation visits, up 32 percent from the same period last year, and 17 percent above 2019's talley through September.
The list below shows the year-to-date trend for recreation visits over the last several years (through September):
- 2021 – 4,472,982
- 2020 – 3,393,642*
- 2019 – 3,807,815
- 2018 – 3,860,695
- 2017 – 3,872,775
- 2016 – 3,970,778
Affected areas: developed corridors
Yellowstone's road corridors and parking areas equate to less than 1,750 (0.079%) acres of the park's 2.2 million acres. Most visitors stay within a half mile of these corridors.
Visitor use strategy
Yellowstone's visitor use strategy, developed in 2019, focuses on the impacts of increasing visitation on: 1) park resources; 2) staffing, infrastructure and operations; 3) visitor experience; and 4) gateway communities, including economic and recreational access. The park is concentrating on the most congested areas including Old Faithful, Midway Geyser Basin, Norris, Canyon rims, and Lamar Valley.
Actions
The park has developed a comprehensive resource tool to monitor and respond to impacts on resources. The park piloted an AV shuttle system in 2021, moving over 10,000 visitors at Canyon Village and testing technology that could be used in the future. A major shuttle feasibility study is underway to analyze the viability of a shuttle system in the Midway Geyser Basin corridor. The park is also taking advantage of data derived from recent major visitor surveys and transportation studies to inform future decisions and is working closely with Grand Teton National Park on future solutions since both parks substantially share visitation each year.
Yellowstone has completed more than $100 million in projects over the past two years to improve transportation infrastructure, reduce traffic congestion and enhance visitor experiences. Substantial additional investments will continue in 2022 and 2023 in multiple areas of the park as part of funding received from the Great American Outdoors Act.
Plan your visit
If you plan to travel to Yellowstone this autumn, check the road and weather conditions, plan ahead and recreate responsibly to protect yourself and the park. Stay informed about changes to park operations and services by downloading the NPS Yellowstone app and visiting www.nps.gov/yell or the park’s social media channels.
More data on park visitation, including how we calculate these numbers, is available on the NPS Stats website.
Yellowstone footnote: *The park was closed March 24-May 18, 2020, due to COVID-19. Two entrances were open May 18-31 and the remaining three opened on June 1.
Comments
I'm actually fine with the many of these public lands remaining under their current status. The Forest Service takes its mission seriously, and I think it's a good thing that there are places where it's legal to do activities that wouldn't be allowed in NPS lands. Cutting a Christmas tree, collecting pine cones, hunting, plinking, etc. can and should have a place that doesn't involve doing so at a higher price on private lands.
And I think I've made my stance clear that my primary concern is that naming new national parks isn't really going relieve crowding at places like Yellowstone. It just won't happen. Many are suggesting higher entrance fees and/or reservations in order to relieve crowding, which then has its own supporters and detractors. I'm actually rather ambivalent about whether or not there are new designations of national parks or additions to national parks. They may very well serve to protect more lands under NPS rules, but I really don't see it solving the issue of this article, which is high visitation of a popular national park.
And I disagree that there is little promotion of national forests or BLM lands. BLM does encourages outdoor recreation, although their promotional budget isn't necessarily that high. Certainly they're extremely well visited in the Moab area, where there's plenty of off-road and bicycling opportunities. Burning Man has certainly boosted the profile of BLM lands. And I've already mentioned the Forest Service's "Discover the Forest" promotional campaign. Didn't I previously mention record visitation this and last year even with a lot of closures of Forest Service lands?
https://discovertheforest.org
I would say that I do agree that perhaps Mt St Helens should be added as a national park. There was a booster asking for it a few years ago with a blog called "We Deserve a Park", but it's gone now. I've been there and enjoyed it, but I'm not quite sure what a national park designation would really do for it other than transfer its management.
Thanks for the interesting discussion, also the civility!
In the short run, only caps on daliy entry will reduce overcrowding, which is a symptom of human overpopulation and over-consumption. Good luck with that! What politician (or NPS manager) was ever elected (promoted) by calling for Less?
The transfer of St. Helens Nat'l Volcanic Monument from USFS to NPS would not reduce crowding at nearby Mount Rainier, quite likely the opposite, IMO. Both are snow-bound, with access roads largely unplowed most of each year and both are already commonly visited in the same summer trip by foreign and out of state tourists.
St Helens would be logistically difficult for the top-heavy NPS to manage everything from sanitation to law enforcement with almost no nearby housing or services. There are three widely separated paved access roads and numerous logging roads used by hunters, ORVs and especially snowmobiles. The snowmobile parking lots at the seasonal closures are larger than the general use parking lots at most NPS units, having several dozen 60-foot spaces for large pickups with sled trailers. Changing management agencies would meet fierce resistance from locals and their politicians.
There is also a threat to long term ecological research projects from proposed flood-control development in the name of public safety:
https://tdn.com/news/spirit-lake-tunnel-needs-5m-to-15m-work-officials-s...
Here's some interesting perspective:
https://www.nationalparkstraveler.org/2009/03/committee-keep-mount-st-he...
Since 2009, the roads are paved and nearby communities have had a tourism boom.
I'm not angry about it, but then again I don't really see how any meaningful reduction in visitation to a place like Yellowstone will come from putting the NPS imprimatur on different experiences. Reminds me of a movie line - "That makes her the best! And don't I deserve the best?"
I vaguely remember the push for Mt St Helens to receive a national park status (especially after they closed their only year-round visitor center), but it's been a while since I really thought about it. However, in occasional conversations with people who aren't national park enthusiasts, there seems to be surprise that it isn't a national park yet. However, I did understand that locals enjoyed the uses that Forest Service administration allows, and I've stated that local buy-in is often needed.
There are remote units of the National Park Service, so there is some experience with it. In terms of Mt St Helens, I'm pretty sure whatever the Forest Service does in terms of services and law enforcement would guide how a theoretical NPS handover would be achieved. But then again I'm not sure there would be any meaningful bump in visitation since it's already well known, and adding lots of services would bring a lot criticism that it's being spoiled.
Hi y_p_w,
Well, I guess we will just have to agree to disagree. But I do want to briefly clarify the points I was making.
* Most National Park System lands are not crowded and many are sparsely visited. However, many full-fledged National Parks are crowded, and this degrades the visitor experience, stresses Park Service staff, and causes localized environmental damage. The National Park Service needs a larger budget to address mounting visitor pressures and impacts.
* There are few national parks in the East, South, and Midwest, regions which encompass the majority of the U.S. population. In particular, people living in major metro areas have few national parks to choose from. This is certainly a major reason why eastern parks such as Great Smoky Mountains and Acadia are among the most crowded.
* Hundreds of areas across America could qualify for national park designation. Creating more parks in the park-deprived East, South, and Midwest would offer alternatives closer to home and would likely reduce trips to far-off parks in the West and Alaska. New parks near existing national parks would offer alternatives that could accommodate visitors who want to avoid congested existing parks.
* The designation of a new national park tends to draw additional visitors. It is likely that some of these visitors will go to the new park rather than an existing park.
https://headwaterseconomics.org/public-lands/protected-lands/national-mo...
* Yellowstone, Yosemite, and Grand Canyon are famous for their scenery, but also because they have been a part of American culture for a century. But most other national parks are also much better known than national forests or BLM lands because they receive a lot more public attention. For example, the Mighty Five campaign alone is credited with bringing an extra half-million additional visitors to Utah national parks. With the exception of some state park systems, here is no comparable marketing campaign for other public lands.
https://www.sltrib.com/news/environment/2019/05/11/utahs-mighty-campaign/
* There is inevitably opposition from entrenched local interests to any new national park proposals. However, this has been the case for almost every existing national park, starting with Yellowstone. These parks happened because most people support them and convince Congress to establish them. History shows us that the opponents of existing natonal parks were misguided and these parks enjoyt broad, lasting public support.
https://westernpriorities.org/special/2016/monuments/
* Protecting lands as national parks for recreation synergizes with the goal of protecting 30 percent of the U.S. from resource extraction and development by 2030. Today only 12 percent of our lands meet this standard and the vast majority are in Alaska. National parks and wilderness areas meet the standard but most national forest and BLM lands do not, because they allow logging, grazing, mining, energy development, and other resource exploitation. Expanding national parks and wilderness areas to protect some of these lands would be a significant step toward 30 percent goal.
https://defenders.org/sites/default/files/2020-07/getting-to-30x30-guide...
I'm wondering where the recreational visitation numbers came from that don't have it over 4 million yearly previous to 2021. I'm looking at the official NPS numbers and they claim over 4 millions for every year from 2015 to 2019.
https://irma.nps.gov/STATS/Reports/Park/YELL
I'm not necessarily opposed to the designation of new areas or previous units as national parks, but I just don't see it as a practical means to relieve congestion at the big western parks. I like movie lines, so here goes another one.
People want Yellowstone. They want Yosemite. They want Grand Canyon. Heck - for some reason Europeans love Death Valley in the summer. This is what I'm getting at. Even if new NPS units or redesignated units attract more visitation, it's not going to take away visitation from the big parks. That's not how most people plan their vacations.
As far as visitation numbers go, I can certainly see a short term boost in visitation for some newly designated national parks, but whether or not it can be sustained is another matter. One of the more recent additions is Indiana Dunes, which was always known for attracting regional visitation. They did have record numbers for 2020, but that seemed to be a trend where people were attracted to nearby outdoor recreation after being cooped up due to COVID-19. It's a very different dynamic when a family goes on a camping trip a few hundred miles away, as opposed to a place like Yellowstone where most of the visitors come from around the country and even around the world. On my last visit to Yellowstone, I met people who came from all over the western US and even Europe. I don't see that as a major part of the visitation of a place like Indiana Dunes.
https://www.greatlakesnow.org/2021/06/great-lakes-parks-increased-visita...
A lot of these units did have visitation go up as a result of general trends in outdoor recreation. Great Sand Dunes didn't see any big jump in visitation numbers when it became a national park. It has more recently, but the same goes for the former White Sands National Monument even before it became a national park.
A few additional thought on visitation.
Of course, everyone wants to see Old Faithful, Grand Canyon, and Yosemite Valley. Those parks will probably always have significant numbers of visitors. But it is expensive to travel to these remote places from the East, South, or Midwest. There are millions of people who cannot afford such a trip, or can afford to go only once.
Climate change will have an impact on travel. Long trips will become even more expensive. People are likely to take more vacations closer to home. This could, in particular, reduce the amount of visits from foreign countries to U.S. national in the coming years.
Creating new national parks in the eastern half of the country would offer people in dozens of states options nearby, which would have the benefit of reducing climate impacts, distance traveled, and cost for travel, and make it possible to take more national park vacations.
What impacts the creation of a bunch of new national parks would have on visitation to famous national parks is an open question. However, there is no question that new national parks, especially in the East, South, and Midwest, would offer millions of people more options for more park visits that are more affordable than what is available today.
Michael, until now, I have read your comments with an open mind, but now I am beginning to think you are stubborn. For starters, it was your suggestion that new parks would relieve pressure on Yellowstone. Now you are challenging someone else to prove that they won't. Since it was your idea, isn't it your obligation to prove that they will?
Here are the "problems" as I see them. Yellowstone is overcrowded because the Park is iconic. It was our first national park, and many of us were first introduced to the Park when we were toddlers. And once the Park has a bite on you, you tend to go back again and again. And so do your children. And your grandchildren. But most importantly, Yellowstone is unique. Unless you want to go to Iceland or New Zealand, Yellowstone is your best opportunity to see thermal features, to say nothing of everything else there is to see.