While visitation at Yellowstone National Park dropped in 2019, there are times when the park is so crowded that park officials suggest to “pack your patience” for your trip.

In 2019, visitation to Yellowstone National Park was at the lowest level it has been since 2014. Yet the park recorded over 4 million visits, a 2.3% decrease from 2018 and a 5.6% decrease from the record-breaking year in 2016, when 4,257,177 visits were made to the park.

There’s a distinction between the number of visits and the number of visitors that is often lost in translation. Yellowstone Park Superintendent Cam Sholly addressed the issue in a recent interview with Wyoming Public Television.

“It’s not 4 million individual visitors, it’s 4 million to 4.1 million visits,” Sholly said, estimating that equates “to about 1.2 to 1.5 million individual visitors coming to the park.”

He also noted that the park is 2.2 million acres and 3,500 square miles — “bigger than Rhode Island and Delaware put together.”

“The vast majority of the park never sees a visitor,” he said.

The road corridor, consisting of about 300 to 350 miles, makes up about 1% of the park and the vast majority of visitors never leave the corridor.

“We have, at certain times of the year, in certain locations in the park, substantial issues with traffic, with too many people in certain areas,” he said on Wyoming PBS.

In an interview with the Tribune last year, he said that, at any given time, 60% of visitors are in the park’s western corridor.

Sholly is looking at traffic solutions where needed. He used large sports events as an analogy: When tens of thousands of sports fans arrive and depart an arena, there’s traffic support to help alleviate congestion. He hopes to better manage the park’s high traffic areas with arena-style support, as well as additional signage.

Sholly said traffic and parking are issues they needed to work on “more effectively” over time.

The first year Yellowstone annual visitation hit the 3 million mark was 1992. It fluctuated back down below that number until 2007, and has stayed above that since. Park visitation went over the 4 million milestone in 2015. The continued high level of visitation in the park underscores the importance of planning your day, said Linda Veress, public information specialist for the park.

“It’s better to hit the most popular areas earlier in the day than later,” she said. “Even then, it doesn’t take much to get away from crowds.”

Veress suggests planning short hikes, rather than making the easiest access points the final destination. For example, crowds gather near the visitor center at Old Faithful, but few take the boardwalk loop through the geyser basin.

Visitors should anticipate delays and parking woes at popular destinations near Geyser Basin, Madison Junction and on the road to West Yellowstone. Planning the time of year to visit is also important when seeking to avoid crowds.

In statistics from 2014-18, more than 80% of all visitations happen between June and September. Planning to visit the park in July and August — the two busiest months — will require much more patience than seeing the park in May or October; less than 10% of all visitations happen in May.

The East Gate, located just west of Cody, traditionally opens the first Friday in May. Some conveniences will still be closed on opening day, but the quality and quantity of wildlife viewing often makes up for most inconveniences. The 2020 opening day of the East Entrance is tentatively set for May 1, depending on weather.