After a Season of Setbacks, Yosemite Still Drew Record Crowds

Despite months of bad press, Yosemite National Park had one of its busiest years on record.

According to newly released National Park Service (NPS) data, more than 4.2 million people visited the California park in 2025, an increase of 156,000 visitors from the previous year. Yosemite beat out Rocky Mountain National Park in 2025, making it the fifth most popular park in the country, after Great Smoky Mountains, Zion, Yellowstone, and Grand Canyon national parks.

According to the NPS, this was Yosemite’s fourth-busiest year on record, behind 2016 (5 million), 2019 (4.4 million), and 2017 (4.3 million).

The surge in visitors came amid a rocky stretch for the park and the rangers who work there. During the U.S. government’s longest-ever shutdown last fall, about half of Yosemite’s staff were furloughed, leaving the park with a bare-bones workforce. As crews scrambled to maintain one of the country’s most popular parks, people illegally base jumped, climbed without permits, camped in non-designated areas, and operated prohibited drones.

Search and rescue numbers were also way up in 2025, with at least 235 SAR events—the most since 2018. An NPS representative told Outside that the uptick in SAR activity was due to Yosemite’s particularly busy year.

“As visitation increases, the number of SARs tends to rise proportionally. Several factors may contribute to this trend, including expanded access, improved visitor reservation systems, and perhaps broader use of personal technology,” an NPS spokesperson told Outside in December 2025.

Visitation numbers could continue to rise even higher in 2026. Earlier this year, Yosemite and other popular parks announced they would no longer use a timed entry reservation system previously implemented to address overcrowding and congestion. While the NPS hasn’t released specifics since its February 18 update, it stated that NPS staff will manage parking, add personnel at key intersections during peak periods, and conduct real-time traffic monitoring to respond to congestion.

Yosemite National Park was designated on October 1, 1890, making it the third national park after Yellowstone in 1872 and Sequoia in 1890. Since its inception, visitation rates have steadily increased. In 1906, the first year on record, just 5,414 people visited the park. Just over a decade later, in 1927, nearly a half-million people entered Yosemite’s gates.

At 1,187 square miles, Yosemite’s prominence as a national park is rooted in early conservation movements. Early advocates like John Muir and Theodore Roosevelt paved the way for the park’s designation and inspired similar protections at more than 400 other NPS-managed sites. Today, the park offers world-class climbing and some of the most recognizable natural landmarks in the world, including El Capitan, Half Dome, and the annual firefall phenomenon. Its close proximity to major metropolitan areas—six hours from Los Angeles and four hours from San Francisco—means millions of people can access the park for a quick weekend getaway.

Yosemite draws crowds year-round, but its busiest season is between June and August. Winter time in the park is equally as magical, and a perfect opportunity to beat out the summertime crowds. NPS reminds visitors to leave no trace when visiting the park and to practice safety in the wilderness.