From Jim Shepherd
During “the great lockdown” an equally great number of us discovered -or re-discovered- the allure of our national parks. The desire to get outside and breathe some non-filtered fresh air was strong-to the point that infrastructures already rundown due to a lack of government funding, took quite a hit.
Since the National Park Service started recording visitation numbers in 1904, more than 15.4 billion visitors have come to the sites. The most recent year (2021) saw 330 million annual visitors. Those numbers were record-setting in many of the more popular parks. Yellowstone National Park and Arches National Park, for example set new monthly records for consecutive months. The summer of 2021, for lack of a better word, saw huge visitation numbers.
There were more travelers last year- especially after the borders reopened, allowing foreign visitors to see our natural wonders.
2021 made it obvious that there needed to be something done to help balance the wear-and-tear of visitors and the capacities of the 424 sites of the National Park Service.

George, Thomas, Theodore and Abraham aren’t requiring reservations to visit, but there are plenty of restrictions in place at other national parks. Jim Shepherd/OWDN photo.
The solution for crowd control wasn’t simple, but it has been effective: reservation systems. They went into place at many of the most popular national parks: Yosemite, Zion, Rocky Mountain NP, and Dinosaur National Monument.
Last year, more parks and park service properties added them.
No, everyone isn’t a fan, and the idea of having to apply for a time to visit public land has rankled plenty of tempers. Read more