After a slow start to the year, Yellowstone National Park is on pace to
set a new annual visitation record, according to the Billings (Mont.)
Gazette.
Just-released visitor numbers from July show that more than 900,000
people entered the park that borders Wyoming, Idaho and Montana. The
figure is up 11.4 percent from July 2008 and tops the previous all-time
record for July of 847,000 visitors that was set in 1995.
“We expected a good year,” said Al Nash, Yellowstone’s chief of public affairs. “No one would’ve expected a record year.”
Nash credited the rise to a decrease in gas prices, which rose
above $4 a gallon last July. This year, the average is around $2.50 a
gallon. National parks also have been heavily promoted in the national
press as less costly places for Americans strapped by an economic
downturn.
To help out, the National Park Service has offered free entrance for three weekends, the last of which is Aug. 15-16.
Any entrance
All five of Yellowstone’s entrances reported an increase in the
number of visitors compared to a year ago. The West Entrance remains the
park’s busiest, with more than 385,000 visitors in July compared to
337,000 a year ago. The greatest percentage increase in visitation was
recorded through the East Entrance, up 15.1 percent from July 2008.
July is typically the park’s peak month for visitation, followed by
August, June, September and May. The average visitation per day in July
was 29,000 people.
“That July saw an 11 percent increase over the previous year is
certainly not something we would’ve predicted,” Nash said. “It’s the
biggest visitation month ever, period.”
Record pace
This is the second record-setting month for the park this year.
Visitation in June was just under 644,000, well above the previous
record of 609,000 visitors in June 2007.
For the first seven months of the year, over 1.9 million people
have visited Yellowstone. That’s up 100,000 from the previous record of
1.8 million recorded in 2007. With August and September, two more boom
months, yet to come, the park could break the annual visitation record
of 3.15 million set in 2007.
“We still have two of our four biggest visitation months ahead of us,” Nash said.
Although road work has been ongoing and will close the park’s route
between Madison Junction and Norris beginning Aug. 17 and extending
through December, Nash didn’t think that has or will hurt tourism.
Lack of snow and lawsuits led to confusion about the winter season
last year, which could have hurt winter tourism in the park. Visitation
for the first three months of this year was down from 2008, especially
in February, which saw a drop of more than 15 percent.
“Winter’s important, but it is a small component when compared to
the summer’s impact,” Nash said. “But I don’t want to downplay winter.”
