{"id":7886,"date":"2015-08-17T18:12:23","date_gmt":"2015-08-18T00:12:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lastbestnews.com\/site\/?p=7886"},"modified":"2015-08-17T18:12:23","modified_gmt":"2015-08-18T00:12:23","slug":"for-yellowstone-park-july-was-the-busiest-month-ever","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/2015\/08\/for-yellowstone-park-july-was-the-busiest-month-ever\/","title":{"rendered":"For Yellowstone Park, July was the busiest month ever"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Prismatic\"<\/a>

Frank Kovalchek<\/p>

Visitors traverse the boardwalk for a close-up look at Grand Prismatic Spring, the largest hot spring in Yellowstone National Park.<\/p><\/div>\n

CODY, WYO. \u2014 If things seemed a little crowded last month during your visit to Yellowstone National Park, it wasn\u2019t just you. It was the million other people who picked July to visit Old Faithful, Yellowstone Lake, Mammoth Hot Springs and the park\u2019s other top attractions.<\/p>\n

July was the busiest single month ever in Yellowstone, according to numbers posted online<\/a> by the National Park Service. Yellowstone saw 980,702 recreational visitors last month, a 14 percent increase over July 2014, when 858,857 recreational visitors toured the park. That\u2019s 2 percent higher than June 2010, which had been the busiest month on record until now.<\/p>\n

So while the total number of recreational visitors in the park didn\u2019t quite surpass 1 million, when factoring in all the additional people in the park for other reasons\u2014delivery drivers, contractors, park employees and others\u2014the total number of visitors came to 1,155,468.<\/p>\n

So far this year, total recreation visitation in the park is up 17 percent over last year, with 2,279,557 people visiting the park through the end of July. If the trend continues, visitation for 2015 could top 2010, the busiest year ever for Yellowstone, when more than 3.6 million people visited.<\/p>\n

Yellowstone spokeswoman Amy Bartlett said Monday that there are obvious signs of the heavy visitor load across the park.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we are seeing that the parking lots are fuller, the bathroom lines are longer, and that kind of thing,\u201d Bartlett said. “We\u2019re still trying to look at how the numbers are truly affecting the visitor experience.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"CapreAir_Variable\"<\/a><\/div><\/div>According to figures posted on the National Park Service website, Yellowstone can accommodate fewer than 15,000 overnight visitors in hotels, cabins and campgrounds inside the park.<\/p>\n

During July 2010, the park averaged nearly 31,000 daily visitors, meaning that any of the remaining several thousand visitors who plan on spending the night would likely stay in gateway communities.<\/p>\n

In Cody, Wyo., a busy July in Yellowstone appears to have directly translated to crowded hotels, restaurants and attractions, said Sheila Lucas, visitor and membership manager for the Cody Country Chamber of Commerce.<\/p>\n

\u201cMost of the hotels have had an increase in revenue, and it has been a very positive summer so far,\u201d Lucas said. \u201cMost of the hospitality businesses and attractions we have heard from have done very well.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lucas said the Cody Nite Rodeo and Buffalo Bill Center of the West are reporting strong visitor numbers, as are\u00a0as lodges between Cody and Yellowstone.<\/p>\n

This summer has also seen a continuation of the trend of more Asian visitors, Lucas said.<\/p>\n

The Park Service reports that more than two-thirds of park\u2019s annual visitors typically show up in June, July and August. The first year Yellowstone saw more than 3 million visitors was 1992, but every year since 2007 has brought more than 3 million to the park.<\/p>\n

Fall visitation to Yellowstone has steadily increased since the 1980s, and now accounts for more than 20 percent of total annual visitation. Winter visitation makes up only a small part of the park\u2019s annual total, usually topping out at around 6 percent.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s some good news if you\u2019re looking for some peace and quiet in Yellowstone, provided you\u2019re willing to work for it.<\/p>\n

Backcountry use in the park has not grown as steadily as road traffic and crowds around the major attractions. Since the mid-1990s, overnight backcountry use in Yellowstone has ranged between 37,000 and 46,000 person-use nights annually, according to Park Service figures.<\/p>\n

Backcountry use in Yellowstone actually peaked in 1977, at more than 55,000 person-use nights.<\/p>\n

Contact Ruffin Prevost at 307-213-9818 or ruffin@yellowstonegate.com. Reprinted with permission from YellowstoneGate.com<\/a>,\u00a0an\u00a0independent, online news service about Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks and their gateway communities.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

CODY, WYO. \u2014 If things seemed a little crowded last month during your visit to Yellowstone National Park, it wasn\u2019t just you. It was the million other people who picked July to visit Old Faithful, Yellowstone Lake, Mammoth Hot Springs and the park\u2019s other top attractions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":7887,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[2947,430,286,2948,119],"class_list":["post-7886","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-diversions","tag-amy-bartlett","tag-cody-country-chamber-of-commerce","tag-national-park-service","tag-sheila-lucas","tag-yellowstone-national-park","prominence-top-story"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7886","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/21"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7886"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7886\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7887"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7886"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7886"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7886"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}