I've been painting my house to put it on the market. This morning I had the radio out there with me and I was listening to my favorite talk show. The guest was some spokesperson from the NPS (I think) and she said that so far this year attendance at the National Parks is down approximately 40% below the previous 5 year average. That's a lot!

She said that on father's day weekend there were only 7 visitors to a park that usually has as many as 200 visitors. I wish I could have heard the radio better but I was up on an extension ladder and did not want to climb down just to hear the radio.

If any of what she said is true, I'm concerned that the Govt. will shut down many parks. Have any of you folks seen this kind of down turn in NPS attendance?

That is an interesting story. Because of it I did some digging on the internet and can find nothing there to support it. The national data is not yet available for this year at all and most of it is two years old.

I did find current visitor data at several of a the individual park sites and that does not really support what you heard either. As an example, Big Ben NP did have visitor numbers up through March of this year and when compared, Jan. as almost the same as last year, Feb. was up and March was down. In no case was the month very far down so.................. ? Not all parks have that data but this was pretty typical of what I was able to find. I am sure that Yellowstone is off because they had a high snow winter and the roads are behind schedule for snow removal.

I really didn't find much of any use.

I agree, Kirk. I had heard about three weeks ago that the NPS is holding about the same attendance as in previous years. I'm going to go to that radio station's website to see if I can find out who she was. I'll report back.

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I went to the radio station website and downloaded the first hour of the program (that's when I think I heard the discussion). I browsed through it and did not find the part where they were talking about the National Parks. So I sent the talk show host an email and asked him to verify what I think I heard. We'll see.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Boogity,

Just got my July issue of Motorhome Magazine and there is an article on attendance at the National Park System.

In 2007 the attendance was 275 million visits, up 3 million over 2006.

That was the latest full year data available.

Steve Ball
USN Ret.

The early numbers for Yellowstone were down because of snow and cold, but as of today every CG and Lodging facility with one exception is full. Canyon still has snow in some sites in the upper loops, but as soon as they can get them cleaned the will be able to fill them up.

We took a drive out to the NE Gate today and they had a sign on the window of the entry gate attendant that said, "All facilities in the park are full".

I see nothing to confirm what the OP reports.

The Cumberland Gap NP was way down for the month of June, but that is because they closed it to pave all the sites.

Scheduled to be closed the entire month of June, but they said it would re-open as soon as the paving was completed.

The public parks we have stayed in so far have been full on the weekends, but come Sunday afternoon they start clearing out.

I think most people are just visiting CG's closer to where they live rather than driving a long distance to another CG.

I just returned from Bass Lake, CA and it's a ghost town. It's usually very full being close to Fresno. I had the campground, NFS, all to myself.

I suspect the dropping numbers will be kept quiet for as long as possible. It's an election year.

Outdoor Recreation participation rates have been trending down for well over a decade now.

It has more to do with Americans being more wealthy and spending their vacation money on hotels, beaches, and ski trips rather than camping.

Also the demographics in the country are changing dramatically. The only ethnic group that appears to be following European origin Americans in outdoor participation are well-educated Asians and their participation rate is much less than whites.

My take is that gas prices will affect where, but not how much people will recreate. That said, I don't believe that campers were as strong about continuing to camp as other recreation participants. The people in this forum are the exception to that statement since this is your lifestyle.

Here is the web site for visitor reports by individual National Forest:

http://www.fs.fed.us/recreation/programs/nvum/


I do not think their is any concern for the government shutting down the National Parks. They have always been well funded and really were established for preservation of the area as well as recreation.

I suspect you will see more impact on the other agencies such as the Forest Service and BLM.

The Forest Service is in particularly bad shape as many of those campgrounds are old and obsolete. The only way they are staying open is through the concessionaire program which is raising campground fees to the point that fewer people want to camp in Forest Service campgrounds.

I had been following visitor use since 1978 and until the day I retired. Interesting topic with really minimal information and lots of opinion!! And that is internal to the AGENCIES, let alone the public.

quote:

Feb. was up and March was down.

In Feb. diesel was $3.30
In March diesel was around $3.80

Notice any pattern there

The destination popular parks campgrounds were always full with more people wanting in . I don't think that will change.

It is the smaller parks that will be affected.
I am now paying $1.83 more per gal. of diesel then I did the summer of 2007.

But I don't have to worry where the money will come from this winter, to keep a sticks & brick warm. The ones thinking about that are probably going out camping less this year.

I'm currently a camphost in the South Campground of Zion National Park. We are FULL every day
with folks often having to leave Zion in order to find camping spots in other non-park places. Zion, Bryce and the Grand Canyon are close to major populations and we do get a lot of folks from Las Vegas and Los Angeles. Also, among the visitors is a large number of European tourists who fly in and rent RVs.

I'll second what LightCurve on the Road said.

I live in St. George and went to Zion NP last week to hike Angel's Landing. I strolled around the campgrounds after, and every spot was full.

This is what the National Park Service reported for last year before the latest economic developments.

http://www.funoutdoors.com/files/Nov%20Report_FINAL.pdf

"Yellowstone National Park had 120,800 more overnight stays in their Concessioner Camping. Lake Mead National Recreation Area had -55,000 fewer Concessioner Campground overnight stays and -19,400 fewer Non-recreation overnight stays in their trailer village.

Grand Canyon National Park reported 62,400 more Concessioner Lodging, 12,000 more Concessioner Camping and 31,800 more Backcountry stays while reporting -20,500 fewer RV overnight stays. Great Smoky Mountains National Park reported 39,800 more overnight stays in Tents and RVs."

System wide the National Parks reported a 0.8% increase in recreational visits and a 0.7% decrease in recreational vehicle visits.

In response to the OP's concern about Parks being closed, I think it is more likely that campgrounds and in Park Lodging may be closed both for budget reasons and the ongoing pressure from environmental groups to remove those activities from the parks.

We are camp hosts in a State park and the Fathers Day weekend attendance was indeed way down. We had a bunch of cancellations. Of course the two inches of snow along with the rain and cold might have had something to do with it.

We are full this weekend and every weekend until the 4th of July. I don't have reservation sheets that go out any further than that.

I received a response from the talk show host yesterday. He said that the lady I heard was a caller and he thinks she was calling from a travel agency in Cleveland Ohio. She was not an authority from the NPS. He would not spend the time to look up any additional information for me.

I have a feeling that she was relating a situation of low park attendance at a remote location that would require visitors to travel many miles off the main routes. I would think these places would be hit much harder with low attendance than others nearer to the main roads.

Also, I wonder how much the weather is affecting the NP attendance? We have friends who were in Cody, WY just before Father's Day and couldn't get into Yellowstone due to roads blocked by snow. The Going to the Sun road in Glacier just opened a week or so ago.

Big Bend NP and Death Valley also fall off in the summer due to the heat.

Parts of California are closed due to fires.

I suspect that caller didn't have all of her facts in order.

Safe travels,

Judy