Grand Teton National Park was one of many parks that saw record visitation in 2021/NPS file

National Park Service Director Chuck Sams has been asked to provide the Senate Subcommittee on National Parks with a briefing on the problems with heavy visitation in some corners of the National Park System.

"With the number of visitors dramatically increasing over the last ten years at top destination park units, it is important that we are made aware of the impacts, both positive and negative, so the committee can better address the situation," wrote Sens. Angus King, a Maine Independent, and Steve Daines, a Montana Republican.

High visitation has been a concern in recent years for a number of national parks. Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming saw nearly 5 million visitors last year, while Acadia National Park in King's home state eclipsed 4 million visitors for the first time. Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado has experienced a 44 percent increase in visitation since 2012 and is again using a time-entry system this year, as is Arches National Park in Utah. At Shenandoah National Park in Virginia, tickets are needed to hike to Old Rag this year in an attempt to reduce crowding. Glacier National Park officials in Monanta last year tried to balance crowds and protecting natural resources by resorting to a ticketing system for visitors interested in driving the Going-to-the-Sun Road; that system is returning this year.

Assateague Island National Seashore received a record 2,662,716 visitors last year at its beaches in Virginia and Maryland, and a record also was seen at Big Bend National Park (581,000) in Texas. The Blue Ridge Parkway attracted nearly 16 million to its scenic parkway through Virginia and North Carolina, Guadalupe Mountains National Park in Texas counted a record 243,000, and Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming had a record 3.9 million.

The list of record-breaking parks in terms of 2021 visitation continues, and includes Great Smoky Mountains National Park in North Carolina and Tennessee, Theodore Roosevelt National Park in North Dakota, New River Gorge National Park and Preserve in West Virginia, and Capitol Reef National Park in Utah. Zion National Park in Utah surpassed 5 million for the first time.

And yet, Park Service staffing has remained essentially flat, as King pointed out last summer during a subcommittee hearing when he used a chart to show that while annual visitation to Yellowstone had grown from about 3 million in 2006 to more than 4 million in 2016, full-time staff numbers have been essentially flat since 2000 at around 550.

With the possibility of international travelers returning to the National Park System this summer, the senators expressed concerns (letter attached below) over how that would affect the visitor experience and natural resources.

"As international and domestic travel begins to ramp up after the devastating effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, we expect this trend [of growing visitation] to continue. We should continue to encourage visitation to all of our national park units, however, as visitation increases, it is important we know the scope of what the impact is," they wrote Sams.

In light of those concerns, King and Daines asked Sams to provide the subcommittee with:

• An overview of park visitation trends at highly visited parks
• An overview of staffing trends at highly visited parks
• An overview of staffing morale, housing, and retention at highly visited parks
• What parks, if any, are experiencing visitation that is unmanageable by the park
• What parks, if any, are implementing new policies to adjust to visitation increases
• What the National Park Service is doing to encourage visitation at lesser visited park units, and any limitations on the National Park Service from encouraging visitation to other federal or state public recreation areas.