2022 ISRO Attendance

[hooky]

I have seen a number of articles over the years that say that Isle Royale was the least visited NP outside AK. However recently I've seen it drop to 3rd in that list with American Samoa and North Cascades having lower attendance. I looked up the stats for these. For the recent years of 2019, 20, and 21, the attendance at AS was 60K, 4K, and 8K. I can understand this drop due to Covid travel restrictions. But for those years the attendance at NC was 38k, 32k, and 18k and for IR, 26k, 6k, 26k. So indeed IR had a higher attendance than the other two in 2021, but I'm a loss to explains dramatic drop at NC in 2021. For that matter, I'm not sure why a NP just a 2 hrs drive from America's 15th largest metropolitan area gets so few visits, even before the 2021 drop.

I have a buddy who has backpacked there a few times and was told that the low visitor numbers are due to the fact that the only highway access is through the National Recreation Area, not the park (and it requires a serious hike to get into the park). All the drive in campsites along Hwy 20 are in the NRA area, so they're not counted as park visits.

[odd man out]

I have a buddy who has backpacked there a few times and was told that the low visitor numbers are due to the fact that the only highway access is through the National Recreation Area, not the park (and it requires a serious hike to get into the park). All the drive in campsites along Hwy 20 are in the NRA area, so they're not counted as park visits.

Thanks. Yes, I found that out from another NP forum. I was also told that the large drop in the last year's data was due to forest fire closures during the peak of the short season.