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 looked up a visitor survey from 2018, and they had 83% of visitors entering by bus as first time visitors, and 75% by private car were first time visitors.
https://www.nps.gov/yell/learn/management/upload/2018-Yellowstone-Visito...
I can certainly understand how iconic places attract visitors. I've worked in multinational companies where I had to coordinate with an international group of people. When I mentioned I was going on vacation and was asked where, when I mentioned Yellowstone it was instantly recognized. If I mentioned Great Smoky Mountains or visiting Moab, I doubt that many would recognize the names.
As for places with thermal features, there are some in other NPS areas. I saw a few hot springs at Olympic NP and Mt Rainier NP, but they were generally rather disappointing. Sol Duc Hot Springs (similar to Hot Springs NP) has a commercial operation where they use natural hot spring water in manmade pools, but the source isn't at the pools. Ohanapecosh Hot Springs at Mt Rainier was rather underwhelming. Bumpass Hell at Lassen Volcanic NP probably has the best collection of fumaroles and mud pools in the United States outside of Yellowstone. And of course Hawaii Volcanoes NP has rather obvious thermal features such as steam vents.
I was really thinking about the geysers when I referred to the thermal features. I think YNP has about 85% of them, with the balance in NZ and Iceland. I suppose I see buses in YNP's future, but it will take at least two days to see YNP, if tourists must rely on buses. And, busing may not be suitable for some of the iconic parks. Busing was probably necessary in Zion, but the long lines at the Visitor Center are intolerable.
Sure. True geysers are rare. Even so, I don't think most people in the US will have heard of Bumpass Hell. It's kind of obscure even though it's the closest comparison to Yellowstone anywhere else in the United States.
Depends on the area. Something fairly compact can use buses effectively. The Yosemite Valley shuttle is darn near perfect Sequoia NP has a shuttle, but I'm not sure who really uses it other than concerionaire workers. I didn't take the Bryce Canyon shuttle once.
At Yellowstone were actually met a solo visitor (from Europe) who rode in on a bus and was staying at Old Faithful for a few days before taking a bus back out. She could have been well served by some sort of bus system, although I'm not quite sure how that would work given that it's 45 minutes to an hour between major points of interest. And that's if there aren't any bear jams. We helped her out and gave her a ride to Canyon (where we were staying the next day) along with a ride back to Old Faithful. I wouldn't have chosen to visit Yellowstone for several days without a personal vehicle, but some people manage. The one thing I wonder about is the concessionaire workers and how they manage transportation on their off days. Having some sort of bus system would be perfect. I wonder if maybe they have employee transportation that can be requested.
Hi Richard,
My point is that it is reasonable to think that new and expanded national parks would relieve pressure on existing parks. Of course I cannot prove this, just as those who disagree with me cannot disprove it. The only way to know for sure is to create more national parks. We have barely expanded the acreage of the National Park System since the 1990s and we are long overdue.
In addition to the possibility that it would relieve pressure on the existing park, there are other important reasons to expand Yellowstone. This would increase protection for wolves, bison, and grizzlies (when they are taken off the endangered species list) from being killed by hunters. It would prohibit resource extraction such as logging, livestock grazing, mining, drilling, and other environmentally harmful activities. It would introduce visitors to beautiful new areas that are now unfamiliar.
I am fully supportive of exploring other suggested solutions that could help. But the ones I have seen thus far are not likely to be enough alone. So why not try a solution that would have many benefits, and might even help reduce Yellowstone's crowds?
We have a lot of different factors affecting visitation. Possibly the most important is that there is actually quite a bit of pressure because of campaigns encouraging outdoor recreation. There's the social media culture of people showing off where they've been, and that's not limited to just Instagram. It may seem weird since the stereotype is of people stuck at their devices/computers, but I think we've learned from the Gabby Petito saga that many have turned traveling around the country for outdoor recreation into a lifestyle where they show off where they've been.
And most importantly, your initial claim in your first comment was that somehow other parks would specifically take pressure off of Yellowstone. If anything, it might reduce pressure on other lesser known parks, although I've previously stated that I think people don't necessarily worry about the NPS brand when they find spectacular places to visit. There will always be a segment of the tourism where people will accept no substitute for the crown jewels, regardless of whether or not it's visiting Yellowstone, Yosemite, Disneyland, Paris, the Taj Mahal, the Great Pyramids, etc.
Again - you're not going to get local buy-in. The locals who enjoy riding their snowmobiles, hunting, and extractive businesses will complain very, very loudly if they're cut off. Why do you suppose Bear Ears was so controversial? An addition to Yellowstone is going to take a Congressional act,