Yellowstone has busiest September on record
MAMMOTH HOT SPRINGS, Wyo. (KIFI) - UPDATE: An adjustment to Yellowstone's visitation press release from October 13 should reflect an increase of 9,383 visits. The park accidentally undercounted recreation-visit numbers from one entrance station.
With this adjustment, the park hosted 882,078 recreation visits in September 2021. This is a 5% increase from September 2020 and a 27% increase from September 2019.
This is the busiest September on record and the first time the park hosted over 4 million visits year-to-date.
Adjusted, so far in 2021, the park has hosted 4,472,982 visits (instead of the 4,463,599 visits previously reported), up 32% from the same period last year, and up 17% from 2019.
ORIGINAL: Yellowstone National Park hosted 872,695 recreation visits in September 2021.
This is a 4% increase from September 2020 (837,114 recreation visits) and a 26% increase from September 2019 (693,118 recreation visits).
This is 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 4,463,599 recreation visits, up 32% from the same period last year, and up 17% from 2019.
The list below shows the 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."
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.
