Visitation to Yellowstone National Park continued its decline this August, dropping 37 percent compared to August 2021, according to the National Park Service.

This August, the park hosted approximately 582,000 visits — a far cry from last August, which was Yellowstone’s most-visited on record with close to 922,000 visits. The visitation numbers also dropped 29 percent from August 2019, which was the last year before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.

So far this year, just under 2.25 million visits have been recorded in Yellowstone — a 32 percent dip from the same period in 2021. With a total of about 4.8 million recreation visits counted, last year was the park’s busiest on record.

Park officials have noted that the 2021 numbers were likely inflated due to the method they use to track recreation visits. Last year, fewer overnight accommodations were available, leading them to believe that more visitors were counted multiple times as they entered and exited the park throughout the length of their stays.

This year was a different story, as record flooding on June 13 damaged road segments at the northern end of Yellowstone, cutting off access between the park’s interior and the towns of Gardiner and Cooke City/Silver Gate.

Thousands of visitors were evacuated, and staff temporarily closed the park in its entirety. They quickly reopened its southern and western loops to vehicle traffic, and now 95 percent of park roads are open.

Yellowstone’s north and northeast entrances remain closed to visitors, with limited exceptions for those who travel with licensed outfitters and guides. As the summer season winds down, the vast majority of its backcountry is open.

Following the flood-related closures, park staff reported that visitation to Yellowstone dropped significantly in June, and it was similarly low in July. Now, the same trend has been reported for the month of August.