Yellowstone National Park Reports Record Breaking Numbers for October

Yellowstone National Park is reporting strong visitation numbers for the month of October…But should it really be much of a surprise? After all, Yellowstone was closed around this time last year due to the government shutdown.

"We were closed for 16 days last October due to the federal government shutdown," Yellowstone National Park spokesman Al Nash said. "So the difference between last years numbers and this year's numbers is dramatic, just not so useful. We're up about 300 percent from what we were a year ago."

However, compared to last year, Nash said this year wasn’t normal either.

"We had an all time record for October visitation," Nash said. "We were almost 195,000 visitors in the month of October. That broke the previous October record which was set in 2010."

There were 3,483,608 visitors to Yellowstone in the first 10 months of 2014, an increase of over 10 percent over the same period in 2013.

With two months left in the calendar year, 2014 is already the second highest visitation year on record.