Old Faithful Inn

Yellowstone National Park Visitation Strong in 2013

Yellowstone National Park visitation for 2013, thus far, is higher than measured park visitation in 2012.

As winter thawed and roads/facilities opened up to the public, Yellowstone saw an increase in visitation, most notably in May 2013.

All told, there were 293,250 visitors to Yellowstone in May and 392,222 in 2013 overall.

         Recreational    Recreational
               Visits         Visits        Change
                2013           2012
 
January        24,699         24,766        –  0.27 %
February       31,053         27,752        + 11.90 %
March          18,613         20,248        –  8.07 %
April          24,606         29,056        – 15.32 %
May           293,250        268,251        +  9.32 %
 
Total
Year-To-Date  392,222        370,073        +  5.99 %

These figures, while helpful for approximating Yellowstone National Park visitation, do not tell the whole story. The park conducts these surveys by taking the number of vehicles that enter the park and then multiplying that by a set visitor multiplier (persons per vehicle).

This year, Yellowstone has suggested that a better measure of park visitation may be in the number of cars and RVs that enter the park for recreational purposes.

           Recreational    Recreational
            Autos & RVs     Autos & RVs     Change
                2013           2012
 
January          4,135            4,833     – 14.44 %
February         5,654            4,908     +  5.20 %
March            5,215            5,040     +  3.47 %
April            9,777           10,397     –  5.96 %
May            103,537           93,236     + 11.05 %
 
Total
Year-To-Date   128,318          118,414     +  8.36 %

All park entrances saw an increase in vehicles in May 2013, compared to May 2012, with the East and South entrances reporting the largest increase. The numbers of park vehicles in the park is expected to stay consistent with numbers reported in previous years.

Yellowstone will continue to report park visitation figures like these, in this manner, which the park hopes will be a more helpful and accurate measure than in years prior.

Traditionally, July is the peak in Yellowstone National Park visitation, followed by August, June, September and May.

About Sean Reichard

Sean Reichard is the editor of Yellowstone Insider and author of Yellowstone Insider For Families 2017.

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