National parks including Yellowstone and Yosemite are experiencing record-breaking crowds this summer, raising concerns about staffing shortages, traffic, and visitor safety.
If you’re visiting one of a handful national parks this year, you might just break a record. Twenty-six parks had record-breaking attendance last year; this year, many of those same parks are already on track to set new records this summer, with some parks reporting long lines and packed-full attractions.
Yellowstone Park in Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho, reported a new visitation record in May, even before the start of the traditional summer season. California’s Yosemite National Park also broke records in May. Yosemite had used a timed reservation system since 2020 to manage crowds, but the Trump administration scrapped plans to continue the system earlier this year amid complaints about its effectiveness and the impact on the lodging operators surrounding the park, which have built aggressively in recent years.
The National Parks Conservation Association (NPCA) cited staffing cuts and unfettered access to Yosemite as causing what it characterized as “chaos.” The NPCA reported that park staff had been largely opposed to ending the reservation system, and that “gridlock” in the park makes it harder to respond to emergency calls like traffic collisions with wildlife.
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The New York Times reported the park’s free shuttles were filled to capacity and turning away visitors; some advocacy organizations had pointed to the Trump administration’s adding of the already-popular July 4 holiday to free park admission days helped exacerbate crowding.
Earlier this month, Senators Alex Padilla and Adam Schiff of California wrote a letter to Interior Secretary Doug Burgum to request the reimplementation of the reservation system.
“The increased visitation we have seen without the reservation system, mixed with the reduction in staff and resources over the past year, leaves us deeply concerned about how the Park will be able to manage visitation safely and effectively protect park resources during the peak summer months,” the senators wrote. “Yosemite National Park is the crown jewel of the National Park System, yet overcrowding, vehicle congestion, limited parking, and long lines have long been issues that diminish what should be a world-class experience.”
It’s almost a perfect storm affecting visitation at parks around the country—less funding, lower staffing, fewer entry restrictions (except for a controversial non-citizen fee at some parks, which requires park entry points to verify residency for all visitors, slowing down entry), resulting in overcrowded parks.
Last summer, the NPCA found that the park system had seen a nearly 25% decrease in its permanent workforce, leaving park management to less-experienced seasonal workers.
Visitors have plenty of alternatives to overcrowded national parks this summer. While many national parks are breaking attendance records, there are others that are still sparsely attended. In 2025, the busiest 10 national parks accounted for half of all park visits, although the National Park Service oversees more than 433 National Monuments, National Battlefields, and National Historic Sites. There are plenty of less-crowded national parks and historic sites around the country, in addition to numerous state parks, which are funded and operated entirely separately from the National Park System.
State park alternatives include Alaska’s Denali State Park, Point Lobos State Natural Reserve near Carmel, California, Hawai‘i’s Kōke‘e State Park, and Washington’s Camano Island State Park.
The National Park System was created by an act of Congress in 1916, with a dual purpose: to not only “conserve the scenery, natural and historic objects, and wildlife within federal parks and monuments” and also to “ensure they remain unimpaired for future generations while providing for public enjoyment”. In short, the NPS was chartered not only to preserve public lands, but also to ensure the public would have access to them in perpetuity.