Voice of America
24 Jan 2022, 03:35 GMT+10
MAMMOTH HOT SPRINGS, WYOMING - A record number of visitors flocked to Yellowstone National Park last year despite fewer hotel rooms and campsites being available because of the coronavirus pandemic and construction projects.
About 4.86 million visits were tallied in 2021, breaking the prior record set in 2016. It's a million more people than visited in 2020.
Known worldwide for its wolves, bears and other wildlife and thermal features such as the Old Faithful geyser, Yellowstone will mark its 150th anniversary in 2022. It straddles the borders of northwestern Wyoming, southern Montana and eastern Idaho.
Visits to national parks across the U.S. have been trending up in recent years. Others such as Utah's Zion National Park also set new visitor records in 2021 as tourism bounced back from the shutdowns imposed during the early days of the pandemic.
At Yellowstone, a rush of people from May through September last year strained employees and park services. It came as the park was understaffed through the summer because of worker housing caps and difficulty recruiting new employees, park officials have said.
There were also 20% fewer campsites and hotel rooms in 2021 compared to previous years. That meant hundreds of thousands of visitors left the park at night and would re-enter after staying elsewhere. Each time they entered the park counted as a separate visit.
Park officials said they are trying to find a way to differentiate between new visits and people who enter the park multiple times on the same trip.
Yellowstone's road corridors and parking lots can get crowded, but they make up less than one-tenth of 1% of its 8,903 square kilometers (3,400 square miles) - an area about 150 times the size of New York's Manhattan Island.
Most visitors stay within a half-mile of those roads, according to park officials. Park crowds drop sharply during winter when much of it is inaccessible except by snowmobile or skiing.
Get a daily dose of Utah Independent news through our daily email, its complimentary and keeps you fully up to date with world and business news as well.
Publish news of your business, community or sports group, personnel appointments, major event and more by submitting a news release to Utah Independent.
More InformationWASHINGTON, D.C.: President Donald Trump is drawing praise from his core supporters after halting key arms shipments to Ukraine, a...
MOSCOW, Russia: This week, Russia became the first country to officially recognize the Taliban as the government of Afghanistan since...
CAIRO, Egypt: This week, both Hamas and Israel shared their views ahead of expected peace talks about a new U.S.-backed ceasefire plan....
WASHINGTON, D.C.: The Trump administration has made public a visa decision that would usually be kept private. It did this to send...
MADRID, Spain: Liverpool footballer Diogo Jota and his younger brother, André Silva, have died in a car accident in Spain. Spanish...
LONDON, U.K.: An unrelenting heatwave sweeping across Europe has pushed early summer temperatures to historic highs, triggering deadly...
MILAN, Italy: Italian regulators have flagged four non-EU countries—including Russia—as carrying systemic financial risk for domestic...
NEW YORK CITY, New York: With just weeks to spare before a potential government default, U.S. lawmakers passed a sweeping tax and spending...
PARIS, France: Fast-fashion giant Shein has been fined 40 million euros by France's antitrust authority over deceptive discount practices...
PALO ALTO/TEL AVIV: The battle for top AI talent has claimed another high-profile casualty—this time at Safe Superintelligence (SSI),...
FRANKLIN, Tennessee: Hundreds of thousands of Nissan and Infiniti vehicles are being recalled across the United States due to a potential...
REDMOND, Washington: Microsoft is the latest tech giant to announce significant job cuts, as the financial strain of building next-generation...