National Parks overcrowding.

Sounds like “Nobody ever goes there anymore. It’s too crowded” attributed to Yogi Berra

westernrvparkowner wrote:
We hear that complaint all the time. Funny thing is, the people who complain the most are long time repeat visitors who often stay at the parks for weeks at a time nearly every year. They don't like the most obvious solution of limits on visitation length and limitations on frequency of visitor passes administered either by lottery or by you falling to the bottom of the list if you have visited in the past. I haven't heard of any cures for overcrowding that aren't worse than the disease.

That was us! We used to do a week in Yosemite every summer (my wife's family started the tradition in the early 70's, we kept it going until maybe 2010). At first we were extremely upset about not being able to get reservations anymore, it's hard to let go of what you are used to.

Due to the overcrowding, our week long summer trips are now moved to another location. Not a NP, but still beautiful and frankly better for camping anyway.

I still get up to Yosemite every year, but visit in winter now because of the crowds.

In October we visited Death Valley. When we were at Badwater Basin no one spoke english.
There were lots of visitors from other countries.

We visit National Parks but only in the spring and fall, when the kids are in school. We like cold weather camping so it works out good for us.

We hear that complaint all the time. Funny thing is, the people who complain the most are long time repeat visitors who often stay at the parks for weeks at a time nearly every year. They don't like the most obvious solution of limits on visitation length and limitations on frequency of visitor passes administered either by lottery or by you falling to the bottom of the list if you have visited in the past. I haven't heard of any cures for overcrowding that aren't worse than the disease.

Makes you wonder if it is worth the hassle any more.

It definitely is. You just need to know how to work the crowd. I do agree, though, that capping visitors may be a solution. No one will like it but sometimes you just have to do something.

Been a number of years since we have been to a NP. Makes you wonder if it is worth the hassle any more.

I agree they are way overcrowded. On our way up to Alaska this year we stopped for a week at the Grand Canyon and a one day stop at Zion. Both were extremely crowded. Zion now can really only be seen via bus as you can only drive straight through now. Similar to Denali.

Over our lives, we have visited 51 of the 58 major NP's. We have definitely seen the evolution of the increasing crowds.

In 2016 35.4% of the visitors to US national parks were non US citizens.

Ken

Since many of us remember going on those summer road trips to the National Parks around 1960 I'll use that for a start...

Tourist Arrivals to the US(from overseas) for 2016 was 75.6 MILLION people (UNWTO)This is for the USA ONLY.

Tourist arrivals in 1960: 16.7 Million (This is for ALL of the AMERICAS including North America, Caribbean and South America!

US Population in 1960 was 180.7 Million

US Population in 2017 325.7 Million

Given the above, overcrowding should be no surprise to anyone.