I’ll never forget, one of my outfitters said to me, “There’s about 3 million people a year who come to the Yellowstone area; I just need to get my fair share of them.” Since then, and especially since the Pandemic, visitation has exploded. Numbers are getting very close to 5 million now.

Yellowstone Record Year

We are headed to WY the end of July, but are planning to camp somewhere more remote for a couple of weeks, and maybe take a couple of long days trips into Yellowstone. I wouldn't go in there at all, but my in-laws are coming with us and they've never been. There are definitely some things in the park worth seeing, but I hate dealing with the crowds.

Personally, I'm hoping to spend most of the two weeks hiking, fishing, and camping far away from all the people.

one can only hope the smoke will be bad enough to choke a large percentage of them out.
The stupid droves of forest service and park ranger minions is more than enough to ever get me to go anywhere near there.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: old rugged cross,

It's not just Yellowstone, many of the parks in the West are experiencing the same. I live very near Zion and haven't been in the Main Canyon to hike in years. Arches N.P. now has a timed entry, maybe Yosemite has the same? Zion has a timed permit to hike the iconic Angels Landing. The national parks are getting loved to death!

Go in the winter.

We’ve been to Yellowstone six times in the past few decades and have noticed a dramatic increase of visitors.

We are taking my oldest son, his wife and our three yo granddaughter later this year. We will be going in the first week of September in the hopes that most kids will be back in school… It will be our DIL and grand daughter’s first visit.

We went to Zion for the first time earlier this Spring and I can tell you it was a cluster f%$#k. We will not be going back there…

The US population has more than doubled in my lifetime. Access to the parks is getting easier all the time with better roads, better cars, plentiful lodging. Airline service has gotten dramatically better and safer.

No longer is it a family camping adventure to go to and visit a National Park. It is more like getting on a flight to Disney.

The great outdoors everywhere is getting overrun.

Our kids do the Junior Ranger Badges, the busiest we've been to so far is Grand Canyon, Rushmore, and Rocky Mountain. I personally like going to the small hole in the wall ones in the midwest. Effigy Mounds, Homestead, Minuteman Missile was cool but they unfortunately have an overly restrictive tour schedule to the launch facility. We were able to see the state run one in Wyoming much easier.

I looked into going to Yosemite next month in our trip to San Francisco and think we will pass and just do all the other smaller parks along the coast.

My favorite parks so far have been Denali and Hawaii Volcanoes. We were lucky to have friends that lived in those places to stay with to keep costs down.

Last time we went, we had to stay in Cody, Wy. It's a beautiful drive between Cody and Yellowstone.

Reminds me of one of my fav feeds; Tourons of Yellowstone!

quote:

Originally posted by Fly-Sig:
The US population has more than doubled in my lifetime. Access to the parks is getting easier all the time..... The great outdoors everywhere is getting overrun.

So true and don't forget all the foreign visitors, seems like 1/2 now are from outside the US.

quote:

Originally posted by mcrimm:
Last time we went, we had to stay in Cody, Wy. It's a beautiful drive between Cody and Yellowstone.

Thank you. That is why I live here although I don't drive it in the summer months.

PC

quote:

Originally posted by ridewv:

quote:

Originally posted by Fly-Sig:
The US population has more than doubled in my lifetime. Access to the parks is getting easier all the time..... The great outdoors everywhere is getting overrun.

So true and don't forget all the foreign visitors, seems like 1/2 now are from outside the US.

Incredible numbers of Chinese tourists. I don’t know how many are Taiwanese and how many from the PRC, but I know that one hotel in Jackson that flies the flags of the countries that most of their foreign guest hail from has a flag from the PRC along with the others.

quote:

Originally posted by ZSMICHAEL:
Go in the winter.

Sage advice. My wife and I visited my BIL in Utah in early March 2023 to see the record snowfall (over 800 inches). We did a trip to Yellowstone. One parks at the edge of the park and rides in on vans with huge tire, snowcats or snowmobiles. We opted for the van route. On the 90 minute ride to Old Faithful lodge, our driver told us all about Yellowstone and we stopped at hot springs and other features. The driver has been a guide there for 20 years and was a wealth of information. At the lodge we hiked, snowshoed and cross country skied. We saw Old Faithful erupt several times, each time there were no more than 100 people, many times far less. The lodge and ride in are not cheap but the experience was wonderful. We experienced no tourons or anything approaching stupid. Winter travelers are a bit more consciousof their world. Highly recommended.

Damn, I was planning a trip. Just did some expensive maintenance on my truck to do so.

Sigh, I guess I'll look at alternative destinations.

quote:

Originally posted by konata88:
Damn, I was planning a trip. Just did some expensive maintenance on my truck to do so.

Sigh, I guess I'll look at alternative destinations.

You can still go. The “90% booked” number referred to rooms in the hotels within the Park’s boundaries (Yellowstone and GTNP). You can still make reservations in Jackson, Cody, West Yellowstone. I’m guessing those places are filling up too, so if you still want to go, start searching now. You may be able to land a night or two in Jackson, and a night or two in the other towns. I wouldn’t think you can expect any deals. If you decide to look into it, I’d suggest calling each hotel individually, rather than going through a travel site e.g. Expedia.

quote:

Originally posted by TMats:
Incredible numbers of Chinese tourists. I don’t know how many are Taiwanese and how many from the PRC, but I know that one hotel in Jackson that flies the flags of the countries that most of their foreign guest hail from has a flag from the PRC along with the others.

This was definitely a thing when we were there 6-7 years ago. The biggest problem was that they travel in busses, and when those things unload they absolutely flood the area to the point where you can't even move on the boardwalk. It became almost a game: drive around until you found a feature that you wanted to see without a bus in the parking area then get out and see what you could until a bus or two showed up and overwhelmed the place. We spent the whole week dodging them.

quote:

Originally posted by TMats:

quote:

Originally posted by konata88:
Damn, I was planning a trip. Just did some expensive maintenance on my truck to do so.

Sigh, I guess I'll look at alternative destinations.

You can still go. The “90% booked” number referred to rooms in the hotels within the Park’s boundaries (Yellowstone and GTNP). You can still make reservations in Jackson, Cody, West Yellowstone. I’m guessing those places are filling up too, so if you still want to go, start searching now. You may be able to land a night or two in Jackson, and a night or two in the other towns. I wouldn’t think you can expect any deals. If you decide to look into it, I’d suggest calling each hotel individually, rather than going through a travel site e.g. Expedia.

Thanks, will check it out. I assume if that availability in the other areas will suggest that the park won't be unpalatably packed just because the Park lodging is 90%.

I'm hoping to go when crowds are at levels where parking can be reasonably found and I'm not always bumping shoulders / waiting in line for everything. I should have gone during Covid.

quote:

Originally posted by UTsig:
It's not just Yellowstone, many of the parks in the West are experiencing the same. I live very near Zion and haven't been in the Main Canyon to hike in years. Arches N.P. now has a timed entry, maybe Yosemite has the same? Zion has a timed permit to hike the iconic Angels Landing. The national parks are getting loved to death!

Yosemite requires a reservation to drive into/thru from April to October on weekends. It's a pain, I've largely avoided the Valley and prefer going up to Tuolumne Meadows. After every time I visit, the idea of visitors having to park outside the park and board a bus/shuttle/metro service is more and more appealing. Walt Disney had a proposal of a Disney ski resort in the Sierras in the last 60's; visitors would park at the entrance and you'd take a monorail into the village as if your were going to Zermatt in Switzerland. It got shot down by the Sierra Club and other lobbyists; this was after Disney was awarded a Lifetime Membership in recognition of Disney's first of its kind nature documentaries.

quote:

Originally posted by Georgeair:
Reminds me of one of my fav feeds; Tourons of Yellowstone!

Pure gold!

quote:

Originally posted by 92fstech:

quote:

Originally posted by TMats:
Incredible numbers of Chinese tourists. I don’t know how many are Taiwanese and how many from the PRC, but I know that one hotel in Jackson that flies the flags of the countries that most of their foreign guest hail from has a flag from the PRC along with the others.

This was definitely a thing when we were there 6-7 years ago. The biggest problem was that they travel in busses, and when those things unload they absolutely flood the area to the point where you can't even move on the boardwalk. It became almost a game: drive around until you found a feature that you wanted to see without a bus in the parking area then get out and see what you could until a bus or two showed up and overwhelmed the place. We spent the whole week dodging them.

Ahh the tourist amoeba!
All the hot-spots in Europe was the same, it was insane with all the East Indian and Chinese tour groups. Buses were stacked up, hordes of people all pushing through no consideration whatsoever, glomming together shoving other people out of the way..grrrrr.

It is nicer to visit Yellowstone in the low season just before bad weather hits. We did that. Spent a week there. Took both upper and lower guided tours.