Yellowstone Insider Your Complete Guide to America's First National Park
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.
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.
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.
