Visits to WA national park sites increased post-pandemic. These were 2022’s most popular
The Evergreen State has an abundance of national parks, historic sites and outdoor recreation areas for all to enjoy. While most of these types of places saw a decrease in visitors during the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, a recent National Park Service analysis (NPS) records show that this trend is now trending upwards.
In Washington state, NPS lists visitation records for:
National Historic Sites
National Historical Parks
National Recreation Areas
Chelan
Roosevelt
National Parks
Five Washington park favorites
Of the numerous options in Washington, those with the most visitors in 2022 were Olympic National Park, Mount Rainier National Park, Lake Roosevelt and Fort Vancouver, respectively.
Olympic National Park
In the years before the pandemic, Olympic National Park averaged over 3 million annual visitors. This fell to about 2.5 million during the pandemic, close to the number of visitors in 2022 at 2.4 million. Its record was set in 1997 with 3.8 million visitors.
Mount Rainier National Park
Attendance of visitors at Mount Rainier National Park only decreased during one year of the pandemic, with over 300,000 fewer visitors than were recorded in 2020 the year before. This number shot back up in 2021 and 2022, with both years seeing 1.6 million visitors. The park’s best year was 1970, when nearly 2 million people visited.
Lake Roosevelt
Another popular recreation site in Washington state is Lake Roosevelt, which generally brings in over a million visitors each year. Its numbers have fluctuated between 1.1 and 1.5 million visitors since its record attendance year in 2012 at 1,781,972. The fluctuating visitation rate was a pattern that continued throughout the pandemic.
Fort Vancouver
Fort Vancouver’s best year was 2018, when nearly 1.1 million visitors attended the National Historic Site. By 2020, the number dropped to 670,000. National Park Service records show this trend was short-lived, with 2022 visitors listed at 964,000.
Post-pandemic park visitation switch
The rest of Washington’s NPS sites saw similar turnarounds in smaller numbers.
Lewis and Clark National Historical Park
The Lewis and Clark National Historical Park’s best year was in 2017 with 293,00 visitors. Attendance dropped dramatically in 2020 with 161,000 visitors. In 2022, NPS recorded nearly 280,000 visitors.
Whitman Mission National Historic Site
The Whitman Mission had its best year since 2014 in 2022 with 52,000 visitors.
Lake Chelan
Attendance at Lake Chelan in 2022 would have been almost identical to attendance in 2019 (nearly 39,000) if 600 more people visited. The site saw a mild decrease in 2020 before going back up in 2021.
North Cascades National Park
Visitation to the North Cascades National Park is returning to pre-pandemic numbers at around 30,000. It tracked the lowest number of visitors since 2004 in 2021 at under 18,000. Its best year was in the late 70s, when over 900,000 people attended.
Multi-state border areas
Not all of NPS sites reside within one state, as historical boundaries often do not reflect current boundaries. Part of Nez Perce National Historical Park is in Washington state, but the majority is in Idaho. It had its best year on record in 2022 at 344,500 visitors.
National trends
Nationwide, the park service says visitation has “essentially recovered to pre-pandemic levels.” The NPS reports holdings contributed $42.5 billion in economic output in 2021, with $20.5 billion spent in gateway communities.
Visits were up by about 15 million in 2022 and “only 6% lower than (the) all-time record year” 2016, which was the NPS centennial year, the federal agency notes.
“People continue to seek a variety of national park travel experiences – to learn about American history and culture, get active, and enjoy breathtaking scenic views,” National Park Service Director Chuck Sams said, in part, in a Feb. 27 news release. “We’re excited to see our efforts to increase visitation to parks in the off-season and in parks that are less well-known paying off.”
Visitation data from 2022 indicate the most popular was “recreation parks,” accounting for 38% of visits, followed by “historical and cultural parks” and then “nature parks.” The NPS logged nearly 1.36 billion recreation hours at parks last year.
Across the parks system, the Blue Ridge Parkway remains the most popular site at 15.7 million recreation visits. It’s followed by Golden Gate National Recreation Area (15.6 million), Great Smoky Mountains National Park (12.9 million) and Gateway National Recreation Area (8.7 million) in New York and New Jersey.
