Yellowstone visitation up 24 percent in 2015

The number of people visiting Yellowstone National Park this year is up more than 24 percent compared to the same time period last year.

Yellowstone saw 383,670 recreational visits in May and a total of 515,693 for the first five months of 2015.

Although some of the increase may be attributed to a new after-hours counter at the West Entrance, a mild winter and early spring also played a role in drawing people to the park.

The visitation statistics are calculated by taking the actual number of wheeled vehicles entering the park gates and a person-per-vehicle multiplier to calculate the number of monthly recreational visitors.