Yosemite National Park attracts about four million visitors a year. Like America itself, they keep closer track of who is entering than who is leaving. I presume Yosemite repels as many visitors as it attracts, as otherwise it would fill up.
August is peak season, drawing a disproportionate number of tourists, with an average August day seeing over twenty thousand enter the park. Many of them are day-trippers, a necessity since when every bed and campsite in the park is in use it accommodates only about fifteen thousand overnight.
During our stay there were about were thirty thousand nature lovers driving through the park each day, most generally following the rules established to preserve their lives and protect the park’s very existence, with a small few running down the wildlife, littering the roadside, and improperly disposing of lit cigarettes. Spread over the park’s twelve hundred square miles, thirty thousand works out to only twenty-five people per square mile. That is about the same population density as the State of Vermont, which does not seem particularly crowded. The reality is, though, that almost all thirty thousand visitors remain in the eight square miles of the central Yosemite Valley floor. This yields a population density of 3,750 per square mile, which is about three times more crowded than New Jersey, the most densely populated US State. Continue reading 23. Yumpin’ Yosemite