Yellowstone slammed in September

JACKSON HOLE, Wyo. — It was a busy September for Yellowstone—the busiest they’ve ever experienced and big enough numbers to boost year-to-date visitors to a new record high.

Yellowstone National Park hosted 882,078 recreation visits in September 2021. That’s a 5% increase over September 2020 (837,114 recreation visits) and a 27% increase from September 2019 (693,118 recreation visits).

It was the busiest September on record, and the first time the park hosted over 4 million visitors year-to-date. So far in 2021, the park has hosted 4,472,982 recreation visits, up 32% from the same period last year, and up 17% from 2019.

Year-to-date trend for recreation visits over the last several years (through September):

• 2021 – 4,463,599
• 2020 – 3,393,642*
• 2019 – 3,807,815
• 2018 – 3,860,695
• 2017 – 3,872,775
• 2016 – 3,970,778

“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.”

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.