GRAND CANYON NATIONAL PARK, Ariz. — Visitors heading to the Grand Canyon lately know they are going to get two things when they arrive: breathtaking views and long waits, whether it is to get into the national park itself or to find a parking spot inside. A few frustrated tourists have even turned around and left.
The crowds haven’t just been coming to the Grand Canyon, where a sign ahead of the entrance gates warns of limited parking.
The throngs of tourists have been showing up in big numbers at other national parks, including Yellowstone in Wyoming, Yosemite in California and Zion in Utah, driven by good weather, cheap gas and marketing campaigns ahead of next year’s National Park Service centennial.
With the busy Labor Day weekend still ahead, the Park Service already has recorded 5 million more visitors from this time last year. The result has been the very traffic congestion that many families and tourists alike hope to escape when they embark on trips to the parks.
Many tourists are taking the crowds in stride.
“It comes with the deal,” said David Stonecypher of Duarte, Calif., who was visiting with his wife Jetta midweek to avoid overcrowding.
Officials at the parks say they are making do with the resources they have, including encouraging visitors to use shuttles to cut down on the number of vehicles within parks and paying overtime to keep as many entrance gates open as possible.
“It has definitely been a struggle. And there hasn’t been an increase in base funding to help compensate for the crowds,” said Aly Baltrus, spokeswoman at Zion, where officials say search and rescue calls have doubled this year as more people veer off established paths.
The increase in visitors is due partly to the Park Service’s “Find Your Park” campaign, which launched earlier this year to reintroduce people to the parks. Several anniversaries are drawing bigger crowds to war memorials in Washington, D.C., and Lake Mead National Recreation Area in Nevada and Arizona is getting more visitors despite record-low lake levels.
Another campaign promises to bring more tourists: Fourth-graders and their families are being encouraged to go to national parks with a free, yearlong pass for them, starting this week.
