2009 Visitation To Yellowstone National Park Reached Record Levels

Connie
Our family was part of that statistic! We were there 3x times in 2009! We went in January, July with our 2 oldest grandchildren (their first visit) and our recent trip for Christmas! Is it any wonder my car has a bumper sticker that reads,
"YELLOWSTONE IS MY HAPPY PLACE"

Kurt--

I need to correct your visitation figures for December 2009. In reality, snowcoach visitation was up 9.4 percent and recreational visitors increased 11.8 percent, despite what the park press releases say. The park's press release erroneously states that the average daily number of snowcoaches was “down” to 32 from 39 the year before. In fact, the number of snowcoaches entering the park in December increased 7.4 percent compared to December ‘08 while, more importantly, the number of snowcoach visitors increased 9.4 percent. I'm not sure why the park is trying to spin the numbers like this but it seems to be a way to play down the fact that an increasing number of winter visitors to Yellowstone are making their decsions about winter travel based on what's best for the park. Wouldn't it be nice if the park were to say that this trend is polluting the park less, making it quieter, and placing less stress on park wildlife?

Rick Smith

As you may know, Rick,Traveler editor Kurt Repanshek is ensconced at Yellowstone's Snow Lodge even as we speak. I'm sure he'll want to review your numbers and respond when he's back in action here at the webzine. Meanwhile, I can only say that those statistics are very, very interesting.

One last item, Bob, about the park's press releases: they fail to mention that the Park’s snowmobile limit of 318 did not thwart access to the Park; indeed that average daily snowmobile use was less than 60 percent of the cap. This flies in the face of the park's public information officer's prediction earlier this fall that the cap would inconvenience visitors and limit access. It makes one wonder what is going on.

Rick Smith

Rick, I'll be very happy when Kurt returns from his Yellowstone sojourn and can dig back into the comments section for this article and address the issues you and other readers have posed. This thing is getting "interestinger and interestinger" (as one of my faculty colleagues was wont to say), and I'm beginning to smell something fishy.

What raises the stench of the fish even more is that the park has not yet issued a press release correcting their earlier assertion that snowcoach use was down in December when the visitation statistics they post show that they were up. Many media outlets use press releases as the basis for their stories instead of going to the stats themselves. Thus, an error becomes part of the public record. I simply cannot understand why the park does not simply say, "Look, we made a mistake in the earlier release. Here are the corrected statistics." I guarantee you that the park is aware of the error.

Rick Smith

@Rick: You are using pretty strong language, given that you have not offered the slightest proof of your claims. Why should I trust you more than the NPS if all you do is ranting. Maybe you could start with telling us the source of your numbers.

MRC--

Thanks for the chance to clarify. I am now quoting from the NPS's Official Stats published by the NPS Public Use Statistics Office for Yellowstone in December 2009:

Recreational visits 2008: 16,343
Recreational visits 2009: 18,107
Percent change +10.8%

Snowcoach visitors: 2008: 4,375
Snowcoach visitors: 2009: 4,786
Percent change: +9.4%

Snowmobile visitors 2008: 4,525
Snowmobile visitors 2009: 4,512
Percent change: -.3%

Snowcoaches entering park 2008: 502
Snowcoaches entering park 2009: 539
Percent change: +7.4%

Snowmobiles entering park 2008: 3,124
Snowmobiles entering park 2009: 3,131
Percent change: +.02

Rick Smith

Today YELL published an update on their numbers:
http://www.nps.gov/yell/parknews/10002.htm

I guess, the visitor statistics were preliminary numbers.