Yellowstone Park Celebrates Record October, Confronts High Traffic Issues

Yellowstone National Park has had a record visitation year, and October was no different.

"Not only was October the busiest October ever, but we also hit four million visitors for the first time in Yellowstone," said YNP spokeswoman Amy Bartlett. "October of 2014 was the previous record, and we beat that by a little over 29 percent."

The influx of visitors is great in many aspects, but it brings trouble too. Yellowstone Park officials are currently researching ways to keep the park feeling like a national park, rather than a long waiting line in an amusement park.

"We are looking at ways to improve the visitor experience next summer," Bartlett said. "We recently had some listening sessions with community businesses and employees in the park. No ideas are off the table at this point we've discussed doing some immediate things like adding more porta potties to the areas where there were long lines, or redirecting some of the traffic flow to areas where there is better parking."

Bartlett says the lines will continue to be an issue at some of the parks hot spots, like Old Faithful, but that guests can still get away from it all pretty quickly if they head out on one of the parks many trails.