As usual, the National Park Service published visitor use statistics for all of 2017 in early February. And I went on a bit of a data bender... I made some charts that illustrate interesting changes (and anomalies) in the number of recreation visitors in select national parks. Enjoy!
Superbloom in Death Valley National Park
I published this chart after the end of 2016, but I thought it was worth re-visiting. Due to a superbloom of wildflowers caused by heavy winter rains, visitation in Death Valley National Park in March 2016 doubled! Attendance returned to normal in March 2017. In August 2017, there was an increase in attendance, and I am not sure, but I am wondering if the solar eclipse had anything to do with it.
Ice Sea Caves in Apostle Islands National Park
Here, we see massive visitation spikes in February and March of 2014. I had no idea why this happened, and I even thought that it might be a data entry error, but then I did a quick Google search, and I found out that in late winter that year, the iced-over sea caves in the park, which are usually only accessible by boat over the summers, became accessible by foot - the shoreline had frozen enough to allow people to walk to the caves!
Government Shutdown and Cuyahoga Valley National Park
In contrast to the earlier spikes, Cuyahoga Valley saw a major dip in visitors in October 2013. I had to look this one up too, but when I found the relevant article, I remembered that this was the most recent government shutdown before 2018. The park was closed for about half of October, typically their last busy month of the year.
Yosemite National Park Visitation Drops 14% in 2017
The reason I started looking at this data in the first place is because I saw that the number of recreation visitors for Yosemite National Park, the fifth most-visited national park in the system, had decreased by 14% from 2016 to 2017. This seemed unexpected to me, but then I realized that the success of the Find Your Park campaign in 2016 had not carried over, and 2017 visitation had returned closer to 2015 levels. The Find Your Park Campaign caused Yosemite's visitation to increase 21% from 2015 to 2016. So seeing a 14% drop from 2016 to 2017 makes more sense after that. Compared to 2015, 2017 visitation is up about 4%.
Joshua Tree National Park Visitation Doubles in Five Years
Something has been going on in Joshua Tree National Park, and I don't know exactly what it is. The park has seen double-digit increases in visitation for the past four years, and this trend has caused annual visitation to double in a relatively short amount of time. I took a closer look at monthly data to see if there was a particular season that was causing the abrupt change, but there wasn't - more and more people are just finding out about the accessibility (and magic) Joshua Tree. The park is less than a three hour drive from Los Angeles, San Diego, and Las Vegas, and I'm just surprised that it took people this long to figure out how awesome and unique it is. I just hope that the park (and the surrounding community) can handle the influx of visitors and that all the visitors treat the park with respect. Leave no trace!
