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.
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Comments
Was there again this year and it is such an ugly experience on the road or at the hubs. Unless your backpacking it is so crowded it has to be negatively afftecting enviroment of the park if not the experience. Very sad
Yellowstone needs to cap visitation at some exceptable level evem if means I cannot go there sometimes. It is currently getting expotentially worse
We can reduce visitor pressure by expanding Yellowstone and creating new national parks across the country. This would provide alternatives for recreation in other outstanding natural areas. A high priority should be new parks near major urban areas, where most people who visit Yellowstone and other existing parks come from.
An expanded Yellowstone would incorporate adjacent national forest and BLM public lands. These agencies allow Yellowstone wildlife such as bison, wolves, and mountain lions, to be killed by trophy hunters when they leave the park. They also allow other destructive activities such as logging, livestock grazing, and mining on many of the lands they "manage." Compared with national parks, these lands are lightly visited because the top priority is resource extraction instead of carbon storage, preservation of biodiversity, and public education and recreation. If we protect these lands and tell people about them, they will come.
That's not going to happen. Wyoming's members of Congress would stop it from happening, especially since it would take an act of Congress. The surrounding area also doesn't quite have what makes Yellowstone special, which is geothermal activity.
Also - those areas around Yellowstone and Grand Teton are not lightly visited although I can't find any visitation numbers per se. They have a lot of campgrounds that Yellowstone visitors use. That's also where a lot of hunting takes place, and the locals aren't going to stand for that. And there's tons of recreation too. Jackson Hole Mountain Resort is on Forest Service land.
Like it or not, people naturally gravitate towards what's popular and spectacular. Simply calling something a national park isn't necessarily going to attract a lot more people simply because a label is attached. Death Valley visitation didn't really change. Pinnacles changed its designation but never really attained peak visitation numbers from before the change. If it's worth visiting, people will figure that out, whether it's slot canyons in Utah or waterfalls in Lake Tahoe.
Hi y_p_w,
Your assertion that the Wyoming delegation would never support expanding Yellowstone is sheer conjecture. The fact is that conservative politicians have supported new and expanded national parks in the past, especially because of their economic benefits, and they will no doubt do so in the future. This is a complex political and economic question that would get worked out if a real proposal were out there and suppoted by the public. And, of course, Yellowstone also overlaps into Montana and Idaho, which have different socio-political dynamics.
Regarding lands surrounding Yellowstone not being special, you have the right to your opinion that only thermal features matter. Some people might think old-growth forests, clear-running streams, biodiversity, carbon capture and storage, intact watersheds, scenic values, etc. matter as well. For example, I somehow think the Gallatin Yellowstone Wilderness Alliance would disagree that those lands are nothing special. https://www.gallatinyellowstonewilderness.org/gallatin-range
Your view that lands surrounding Yellowstone are heavily visited is purely anecdotal. Some campgrounds adjacent to Yellowstone are obviously crowded. But there are many other places miles from the Yellowstone border that have no campgrounds or other facilities. And they are not familiar to most people. Moreover, the Forest Service does nothing to manage and direct people to distribute recreation because they would rather log and graze the lands. So the potential for visitation has barely been explored.
Regarding hunting, most of the parks in Alaska are actually National Park and Preserve, which allow hunting in the Preserve areas. There is no reason that model cannot be used where hunting is a major issue. Moreover, the National Park Service manages hunting where it is allowed, so they could ban trophy hunting for wolves, mountain lions — and grizzly bears if and when they are taken off the endangered species list. They would phase out or manage livestock much more closely, which would lesen the threat of contact with, and killing of, bison.
You assert that "people naturally gravitate towards what's popular and spectacular." But of course, everyone has a different definition of those things. There are hundreds of places in America that are spectacular but they are not national parks and they are little known by most people. If they were designated as national parks they would be put on the map and they would draw a lot more people — including people who have been to a crowded national park already and are ready to try another new park that may be less crowded.
Regarding changes in visitation, there is actually a lot of evidence that designating an area as a national park increases visitation. See, for example, https://headwaterseconomics.org/wp-content/uploads/national-monuments-re... This is why there was bipartisan support in ruby-red West Virginia for the recent conversion of New River Gorge National River to a national park. Death Valley and Pinnacles are poor examples, because one was already world-famous and the other is a well-known area to the millions of people who live a short distance away.
Your contention that "people will figure out" where the special places are is another one based on anecdotal evidence. The fact that many areas that could qualify as national parks are NOT crowded refutes your claim.
We face a climate emergency, a biodiversity crisis, and a public health threat due in part to lack of access to the natural world. And we have numerous national parks that are increasingly crowded. We can throw up our hands and say nothing can be done. Or, we can be creative and bold and make the case for more national parks, which would help to address all of these problems. I choose the latter.
First of all, I never said that the area around Yellowstone wasn't special. However, I don't believe it has what makes Yellowstone special enough to add more area to a national park. As far as visitation goes, the vast majority of the park is within Wyoming, but through a strange quirk in how the boundaries were drawn and where the popular routes are to enter, the gateway communities are nearly all within Montana. For any kind of visitation around there that isn't remote hiking, it would require roads. Building new roads is unlikely to happen.
Now, I don't see why there couldn't be national monument designations for specific areas around national parks. That's happened in proximity to national parks before. Giant Sequoia National Monument was declared in the 90s, carved out (and still part) of Sequoia National Forest. However, the part along Generals Highway was already heavily visited because of its proximity to SEKI.
But again, in the age of social media, people have found out about these special places, and previously lightly visited NPS and even non-NPS areas are being loved to death. Visitation has been encouraged for decades, and it's finally happened. The year I visited Arches National Park, visitation was around 800,000 per year, but now it's about double that. People are looking for their Instagram moments. Even with people dispersing towards different natural areas, national parks are getting record visitation.
There are no simple solutions. When someone visits Yellowstone, they're going to want to go to see Old Faithful, Mammoth Hot Springs, Yellowstone Canyon, and Lake Yellowstone. Adding more on the edges where there are no major roads is not going to be a solution to disperse visition. People gravitate towards what's popular. I keep on hearing about how crowded Alcatraz is and how difficult it is to get a ferry reservation, but somehow visitors haven't backed off. Yogi Berra's saying (Nobody goes there anymore. It's too crowded.) would seem to apply.
Hi y_p_w,
Sorry if I mischaracterized your position on what constitutes special lands.
Regarding the issue of roads, you state that if Yellowstone were expanded it would require building more roads to accommodate additional visitors. There are already way too many roads in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem — built to support logging, livestock grazing, mining, and other extractive industry. https://www.usgs.gov/media/images/map-roads-greater-yellowstone-ecosystem The benefit of adding lands to the national park is that most of the roads could be converted to trails or closed. There would still be plenty of roaded access throughout the expanded park, but we would get rid of damaging resource extraction.
Designating national monuments next to national parks does no harm, but it is only a partial solution. Since the Clinton administration, almost all new national monuments have been left under Forest Service or Bureau of Land Management administration. As a result, other than banning mining and drilling (which is a good thing), they do not really offer much stronger protection than the status quo. For example, the Forest Service, which administers Giant Sequoia National Monument allows activities that are not allowed in the neighgoring national park, such as "mechanical thinning" (i.e., logging), livestock grazing, and off-road motorized vehicle use.
In Wyoming, this is an academic issue, since the 1950 act creating Grand Teton National Park prohibits the designation of any new national monuments in the state without the approval of Congress. https://www.nps.gov/grte/learn/management/upload/Grand-Teton-NP-enabling... It would probably be politically easier to expand the existing Yellowstone National Park than to create brand new national monuments in Wyoming.
There are virtually no places in America without paved roads nearby, so roaded access is not what is holding back visitation to non-national park areas. Despite Instagram, there are hundreds of areas across the country that would qualify for national park designation and many of them are lightly visited. I have been to many of them.
Yes, visitation is increasinig in many existing national park areas. That is all the more reason to create more national parks to relieve this pressure. We are particularly lacking in national parks near major metropolitan areas. Creating new parks in those areas would help to keep more people closer to home instead of traveling long distances to go to existing national parks.
Alternatively, we can continue to complain that our national parks are being "loved to death" and delude ourselves into believing that simply making it harder to get into existing parks is going to solve the problem. Or, even less viable, we can just complain and offer no solutions at all.
I've heard this argument before - that creating more national parks is going to relieve pressure on the crowded, premier ones. However, the premier national parks such as Yellowstone, Yosemite, Grand Canyon, and Zion are popular because they're unique destinations. They tried that before with Cuyahoga Valley National Park. Gateway Arch is now a national park. Just slapping a designation on a piece of land isn't going to magically draw people in to visit who wouldn't have likely visited anyways.
Also - keeping certain lands in BLM or Forest Service operation may be key to a public buy in if there's a national monument designation. That might help with funding and certain protections, but there are legitimate reasons to allow people to maintain their previous recreational (and even some commercial) uses.
The problem right now is that all public lands are under pressure of increased visitation. Outdoor recreation has gotten extremely popular. It's affecting NPS, state parks, BLM, Forest Service, TVA, private lands, etc.
https://www.hcn.org/issues/53.7/infographic-public-lands-crowds-swarm-th...
https://www.adirondackalmanack.com/2021/02/nys-parks-attendance.html
It is simply your opinion that visitors will insist on going to Yellowstone, Grand Canyon Zion. etc., even if there are other outstanding areas available that are closer to home or less crowded. There is no objective evidence that this is true, because we have not offered any serious alternatives. We have not created a full-fledged National Park that was not all or mostly existing National Park System land since Great Basin in 1986. Upgrading a national monument increases visitorship, but those areas general already have a lot of visitors.
What, we do know is that NOT creating new national parks does not relieve pressure on existing national parks. Continuing this failed strategy and hoping for something different makes no sense.
Keeping national monuments under BLM or Forest Service administration also makes no sense. It hsa not increased their budgets. Other than ORV riding, trophy hunting for wolves, target shooting, and other ecologically harmful activities, there are no recretional uses that cannot be accommodated in national parks and nationa preserves. And the designation of BLM and Forest Service national monuments has not led to budget increases. Instead, the agencies do not even come close to having the resources to protect and manage those areas.
As for resource extraction, if you think that having less than 3% of the lower 48 states off-limits to these activities, then the current situation of most public lands being open to resource extraction is just fine. If you think that we need a lot more land protected from such exploitation to store carbon, prevent species extinctions, and offer recreation in a natural setting, then we need a lot more national parks.
You keep reminding us that public lands are receiving increasing numbers of visitors. That is true. But this is focused on a small percentage of public lands — mainly national parks, state parks, and reservoir areas.
You have still not offered any solution to the problem other than claim, without any objective evidence, that creating new national parks will not help this problem.
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.
Resource extraction doesn't necessarily change when there's a new designation. I recall with the Bears Ears designation, there was an additional statement that new mining/logging claims wouldn't be allowed. However, existing claims are typically still allowed to continue. There are a few dozen active mining claims in Death Valley National Park, and the orphan mine at Grand Canyon NP could theoretically still reopen.
Your assertion that only a small percentage of public lands are receiving increasing visitation goes against all the reporting. That article I linked from High Country News noted that the BLM had to institute a timed reservation system at Red Rock Canyon. Camping is way up around the country.
The Forest Service had record visitation too, even with many closures in the past year.
https://www.fs.usda.gov/news/releases/new-data-shows-visits-soared-acros...
https://www.fs.usda.gov/about-agency/nvum
I totally get that extreme crowds aren't a desirable situation in our most popular national parks. However, I don't really see the answer being to simply add more national parks. That's not going to necessarily help with the budget situation either. And taking areas managed by BLM and the Forest Service is not likely to be well received. When the locals are used to snowmobiling or plinking in the woods, they're not going appreciate being told they can't do that any more. Like I said previously, it's going to take local buy in.
People are visiting "crowded" parks even as many believe the sky is falling. This park isn't whining about visitation numbers going up - they are dealing with it and they also understand that many of these visitors are visiting as "bucket list items". It might be their one shot to see Old Faithful and they can tolerate visitors. Just like the rest of our lives, you adjust to what you want the experience to be for you or your family. The broad brush being spread on overcrowding being all over the place is an interesting thing to see and not accurate. There are plenty of parks that aren't near capacity so let's stop acting like everywhere is being overun.
y_p_w,
Yes, existing valid mining claims remain in new national parks, but they are usually extinguished or acquired in short order. Death Valley and Grand Canyon are unfortunate exceptions that have continued because of pro-industry political pressure. In Bears Ears they have probably not had much funding for this in the past, but I hope they get more money now due to the high-profile controversy regarding Trump's effort to gut the monument.
The writer of the HCN article you cited
https://www.hcn.org/issues/53.7/infographic-public-lands-crowds-swarm-th...
has written other overheated pieces elsewhere on this issue. He is clearly not much of an expert on national parks and public lands. He just cherry-picks a few factoids and then extrapolates them with no broader facts to back him up. This makes for zingy headlines like, "Crowds swarm public lands," but it is mostly generalized and misleading fluff.
For example, the HCN author picks a few popular national parks as proof that the national parks are "swarming" with visitors. Not surprisingly, he ignores the many lightly- or moderately-visited national parks such as Great Basin, Lassen Volcanic, Great Sand Dunes, North Cascades, Guadalupe Mountains, Big Bend, Carlsbad Caverns, Theodore Roosevelt, Isle Royale, Congaree, Dry Tortuga, and Biscayne — not to mention almost all the Alaska parks.
He cites the BLM's Red Rock Canyon Recreation Area, which is close to Las Vegas, to supposedly prove his claim that BLM lands are "inundated" by visitors. He provides no evidence at all to support that claim in the case of national forests, though there are examples. And yes, state parks tend to be crowded because they are accessible to large metro areas, offer a lot of visitor amenities, and are used for a lot of day trips.
The point is while there are obviously hotspots of high visitation in the National Park System and on BLM and national forest lands, the vast acreage of these lands are lightly visited and not at all crowded. I have been to public lands across the country, including most of the national parks and more than half of the other National Park System areas, 86 national forest units, and BLM lands across the West and I can attest to this reality firsthand.
In another op-ed elsewhere, the HCN writer has opposed adding new national parks because he claims this will not relieve visitor pressure on existing national parks. As with his other claims, the "evidence" he provides is sketchy and does not at all make his case.
You are right that entrenched interests will not like the idea of converting BLM lands and national forests to national parks. But that has been the case with almost every national park proposal, beginning with Yellowstone. Local supporters who have a broader vision are the key to overcoming this opposition, as it has been overcome to create our existing national parks.
People have ample opportunities for target shooting across vast amounts of public land. Only a small percentage is protected from these uses. Our public lands are owned by all Americans and it is only fair to expand national parks for the benefit of the majority who want to recreate away from these uses. That is aside from the climate and ecological benefits of protecting lands from resource extraction and intensive recreational uses.
There are places where visitor impacts such as erosion, displacing wildlife, and vandalism are real problems. Increased funding for managing visitation would help a lot there. However, although it is inconvenient for visitors, in most places crowds are far less damaging than resource extraction such as logging, grazing, drilling, and mining.
Mather, you might want to double-check your park contacts. I know folks at Yellowstone and Rocky Mountain and Acadia and Zion and Arches are concerned about the impacts of crowds.
Part of the problem is they haven't seen staff increases to keep up with the visitation boom.
That said, you're correct that there are many parks that aren't seeing similar crowds.
Well - that kind of my contention. Many people visit areas as bucket list items. It's going to be either really special (and I don't know of anyone who won't acknowledge how special Yellowstone or Yosemite are) and/or they are close to heavily visited areas such as Zion which is a short drive from Las Vegas. I was told that the most common visitor to Yellowstone spends just a few hours waiting for Old Faithful to erupt and then leaves. I've been guilty of knocking off items from my national park bucket list, and certainly park rangers have been plenty accomodating in allowing that. I'm pretty sure that many others have done that. And adding national parks to the roster isn't necessarily going to change that unless there's something truly special to attract visitors.
A good example of where expansion would almost certainly relieve visitor pressure is Great Smoky Mountains National Park in North Carolina and Tennessee, our most-visited full-fledged National Park. I was just there a couple of weeks ago and the park was experiencing what was apparenty record-breaking visitation. It was definitely crowded, though starting out early in the morning beat most of the worst congestion. Some of the popular trails were hammered, though, and clearly they have to spend much of their budget on crowd control rather than interpretation and education. That is where an increased budget would help.
Contrary to the contention that the most crowded parks have some uniquely special feature, such as Old Faithful, Grand Canyon, or Yosemite Valley, this is simply a beautiful expanse of forested mountains. Few people could name any particular featuer. Yet they come in the millions each year.
While the national park is crowded, there is plenty of space on the adjacent Cherokee, Nantahals, and Pisgah national forests. These forests have numerous features — including wilderness areas — that are at least as outstanding as those in the park. Yet the Forest Service is interested primarily in logging and other resource exploitation, so it spends little time and money on preserving these features or on public information, education, and recreation programs.
As a result, most people know little about these national forests. A paper published by the National Academy of Science found that:
Expanding GSMNP to 2 million acres by incorporating most of the land from these national forests, would quadruple the size of the existing national park. This would not only introduce the public to recreational opportunities that would likely draw crowd-weary visitors from the existing park, but also protect the biodiversity and carbon storage values of the current national forest lands from continuing to be squandered by Forest Service mismanagement.
There are many other comparable examples across the country.
You cite a lot of parks where I'd note that visitation is not heavy and never will be. Traveling to remote locations that aren't Yellowstone isn't likely to happen. Going to Alaska is time consuming and expensive. I haven't been to North Cascades, but my immediate family has been to Ross Lake NRA, which is about as close as most people will get anyways. My understanding is that getting into North Cascades NP proper via road is more like going to Mineral King. And you mention this but still claim that somehow more national parks are going to help disperse visitation from existing national parks.
Now I have been to Lassen Volcanic and frankly it was zoo. The prime visitation spot is Bumpass Hell, and there's an extremely limited time when it's clear of snow. When I was there, the parking lot was full and rangers were writing parking tickets for people improperly parking and blocking the roadway. Also, they had record visitation in 2020. But the rest of the park is simply never going to be that heavily visited, especially when there's snow covering the place for much of the year.
As far as mining claims goes, once someone has a valid mining claim, it's nearly impossible to deny it under law. The main reason for the mining in Death Valley stopping was economic factors.
https://www.nps.gov/subjects/energyminerals/mining-claims.htm
That being said, overall visitation to American public lands is at record highs. Recreational visitation of public lands has been rising for years. And like I've being trying to convey, people will visit areas that they want to visit. But certainly there have been reasons for this. I live in California where I've heard radio ads paid for by businesses dependent on Yosemite visitation. The Forest Service and Ad Council's "Discover the Forest" campaign has been quite successful. Then there are the private initiatives like Diverify Outdoors and the Outdoors Alliance that have tried to get more people to spend time in natural areas. It's not hard to understand that the first choices will be to visit what's closer to home or what's already really popular. When we've had visitors come visit us in California, many want to visit Yosemite. When I had a weekend off in Phoenix during a business trip, my coworkers were suggesting I visit Grand Canyon NP. People are already visiting GSMNP in conjunction with a trip to Dollywood.
I suppose it's possible to add a national park somehwere in Georgia, but what's it really going to do? Bob Janiskee used to write a lot here, and he was part of getting Congaree NP designated as such, but visitation never really took off, and has never been terribly high.
And personally I think that there's been a cheapening of what it means to be a national park over the years. I remember when Congressman Sam Farr wanted Pinnacles to be changed - primarily because he believed that it would increase visitation and bring more tourist money to Monterey County. I'd been there before and enjoyed a short visit, but I didn't think it really had enough of what was needed to be considered a national park. And the visitation numbers have been poor.
y_p_w,
To respond to a few of your comments.
Many potential new national parks are more accessible to people, so they do not need to be Yellowstone to attract visitors.
Right. But it is a lot easier to access adjacent national forest lands, many of which have been proposed for addition to the national park.
Sorry to hear that; it was not when I was there. Regardless, expanding the park to include the adjacent national forests, which are being hammered by logging, would offer alternatives.
If it is valid and if the time limit for development has not run out. A lot of them are not valid and time has run out on lots of claims. A lot of others are sheer speculation and the owners will sell them for a relatively low price. And other companies recognize that to develop a mine or oil well in or next to a national park is really bad PR and do nothing until their time is up.
You point out:
and you proceed to talk about how there is a lot of promotion for Yosemite, et al. That makes people want to visit. That kind of promotion is not happening for most national forest or BLM lands and if people do visit, as opposed to national parks, there is little or no information or guidance as to what they can do.
I think not. Lots of people were visiting GSMNP long before Dollywood existed. The reason Dollywood exists and Gatlinberg is a huge tourist attraction is because of GSMNP, not the opposite.
Seriously? The Atlanta metro area has 6 million people. There are no nearby full-fledged National Parks. You point out how
You answer your own question.
This view of national parks has been around since Stephen Mather decided we already had Mount Rainier National Park, so who needed other Cascade volcanoes such as Shasta, Hood, St. Helens, Adams, and Baker? To stay just in the far West and Alaska, would you say designating Gaviota Coast, Klamath-Siskiyou, Hells Canyon, Sawtooth, Salmon-Selway, Mount Hood, Mount St. Helens, Owyhee Canyonlands, Craters of the Moon, Sonoran Desert, Kauai, Bristol Bay, Tongass, or Arctic national parks would "cheapen what it means to be a national park?"
Luckily, creating new national parks is a democratic process that reflects the broad public vision, not an austerity view that sees national parks as only a few unique and monumental places and ignores all the other reasons for national parks, such as fighting climate change, preserving biodiversity, and offering healty green space to millions of people in underserved urban areas.
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.
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,