Yellowstone Insider Your Complete Guide to America's First National Park
The number of cars entering Yellowstone National Park in July 2013 was up over a year ago, but the National Park Service‘s new method of calculating Yellowstone visitation yielded a decrease in estimated arrivals.
Before the prime portion of the 2013 travel season, National Park Service officials changed the way visitation at Yellowstone National Park was tallied. No, the rangers at the entrance gates aren’t counting every person in every car and RV entering the Park: they’re counting vehicles and assuming a per-car average, which is then extrapolated to a total attendance. By changing the multiplier from 2.91 visitors per vehicle to 2.58, the Park is assuming fewer total visitors to the Park, yet that leaves a total number of cars higher.
At the end of the day, there were 812,212 recreational visitors to Yellowstone in July and a total of 1,828,862 from the beginning of 2013.
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Recreational Visits Recreational Autos & RV's
Month 2013 2012 Change 2013 2012 Change
January 24,699 4,766 -0.27% 4,135 4,833 -14.44%
February 31,053 27,752 +11.90% 5,654 4,908 + 5.20%
March 18,613 20,248 -8.07% 5,215 5,040 + 3.47%
April 24,606 29,056 -15.32% 9,777 10,397 - 5.96%
May 293,250 268,251 +9.32% 103,537 93,236 +11.05%
June 624,429 671,825 -7.05% 221,956 212,916 +4.25%
July 812,212 888,335 -8.57% 291,500 283,898 +2.68%
Total 1,828,862 1,930,233 -5.25% 641,774 615,228 +4.32%
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Compared to July 2012, the North, South, East, and West Entrances saw an increase in vehicle numbers.
July is typically the park’s peak visitation month, followed in order by August, June, September, and May.
Image courtesy National Park Service.
