Yellowstone National Park became a popular pandemic vacation spot, but that doesn’t mean visitation was up.
More than 3.8 million people visited the park in 2020, the National Park Service said Thursday. In comparison, the park saw about 4 million tourists in 2019. Overall visitation was down about 5% during the coronavirus pandemic.
The decline is likely a result of the park’s monthslong closure. The park shut its gates to visitors in March with two entrances in Wyoming reopening on May 18 and three in Montana on June 1. Many states put stay-at-home orders in place and discouraged traveling.
As coronavirus restrictions loosened, however, visitors flocked to the park. September and October were the busiest on record, according to the National Park Service.
Nearly 837,500 tourists visited the park in September. August was also the second busiest on record when 881,543 people visited the park, McClatchy News reported.
The high visitation since the park’s reopening has brought some unintended consequences. In July, the park said face masks were flying off tourists’ faces and landing in geysers.
“On a single visit last week we came across 8 masks, 5 hats, 3 water bottles, and a pair of sunglasses,” the park said in a July 20 post on Facebook.
At least 20 Yellowstone employees tested positive for COVID-19, according to the National Park Service.
In 2019, Yellowstone was the sixth most visited national park in the U.S., according to the National Park Service. It’s unclear where it ranks for 2020 because other parks have not yet released visitation data.
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