Yellowstone Insider Your Complete Guide to America's First National Park
Yellowstone National Park saw the second busiest June on record with nearly one-and-a-half million visitors to the park recorded.
According to a Yellowstone press release, 803,298 people visited Yellowstone in June 2017, down from 838,316 people in June 2016.
All in all, 1,353,636 people have visited Yellowstone National Park so far this year. At this same period in 2016, 1,432,071 had visited Yellowstone. You can see a full breakdown of the numbers below, courtesy of the park.
| Year | Year-to-Date Recreational Visits (through June) |
| 2013 | 1,016,650 |
| 2014 | 1,084,826 |
| 2015 | 1,298,855 |
| 2016 | 1,432,071 |
| 2017 | 1,353,636 |
The news signals a possible trend for 2017, as May 2017 was the second busiest May on record, following 2016’s blockbuster numbers.
The dip in numbers may come as a (slight) relief to Yellowstone officials who are struggling to cope with more visitors and stressed infrastructure. Some proposals floated to deal with “overvisitation” include vehicle caps and more focus on bus/shuttle services.
One researcher at the University of Montana, who published a paper earlier this year about overcrowding in Yellowstone and Glacier National Parks, suggests that parks should have more “boots on the ground” to educate people about park behavior. The researcher contends it’s not the gross number of people in the park so much as the amount of “bad behavior” tourists creating issues.
