Yellowstone Insider Your Complete Guide to America's First National Park
Yellowstone visitation in June 2020 was down some 32 percent from June 2019 visitation numbers, as the COVID-19 pandemic is clearly keeping many folks at home during the high summer season.
All in all, Yellowstone hosted 534,155 visits in June 2020, a 32 percent decrease from June 2019. As is usually the case in other years, the numbers did pick up at the end of the month, during the traditional high point of the season for visitation: In the last ten days of June, traffic counts ranged from 90 percent-116 percent of 2019 numbers.
So far in 2020, the park has hosted 667,290 visits, down 49 percent from the same period last year. But that’s really an apple to oranges figure, as the park was closed due to health and safety reasons related to COVID-19 beginning March 24, 2020. Two Wyoming entrances opened on May 18 and three Montana entrances opened on June 1, 2020. All five entrances were open for the entire month of June.
Here’s the year-to-date trend for recreational visits over the last several years (through June):
2020 – 667,290
2019 – 1,358,629
2018 – 1,381,708
2017 – 1,354,137
2016 – 1,432,071
2015 – 1,298,855
There were no commercial bus visits during June 2020. In June 2019, bus passengers made up 70,461 visits.
Photo of Opening Day 2020 at East Entrance by Jacob Frank courtesy National Park Service.
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