This story was originally published by Daily Montanan: URL: https://dailymontanan.com This story has not been altered or edited. (C) Daily Montanan. Licensed for re-distribution through Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. ------------ State Park attendance down slightly from 2020, but up from 2019 and years prior – Daily Montanan ['Keith Schubert', 'More From Author', '- February'] Date: 2022-02 Montana’s state parks hosted 3.4 million visitors in 2021, a 1.3% decrease from record highs set in 2020, according to a recently released report from the state’s Fish Wildlife and Parks Department. According to the report released on Feb. 11, state parks were on track to lapse the 2020 numbers through July but fell off due to smoke, drought conditions and colder temperatures. Still, the department said visitation was 28% higher than in 2019. “The number of visitors coming to Montana’s state parks is a testament to their importance in the everyday lives of our communities both for users’ health and as a critical component of our outdoor recreation economy,” said Parks and Outdoor Recreation Division Administrator Hope Stockwell in a news release announcing the report. “We continued to see first-time visitors and those who know our parks well, and we are encouraged by their efforts to recreate responsibly.” Total visitation in 2021 was 3,381,507, compared to 3,427,555 in 2020 and 2,647,187 in 2019. And in 2021, visitation exceeded 100,000 at 11 parks compared to eight in 2020 and seven in 2019, the release said. The top five most visited state parks in 2021 were: Giant Springs (Great Falls) 414,889 Flathead Lake-all units (Kalispell) 339,631 Cooney Reservoir (Roberts) 263,691 Spring Meadow Lake (Helena) 254,141 Lake Elmo (Billings) 212,916 FWP data shows the impact COVID-19 had on park visitation as visitation numbers did not eclipse 3 million until 2020, but numbers were on the rise before that, according to the report. “A potential takeaway is that indeed some impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic are at play; however, even before that numbers were on the rise. A look back at historical data for the system illustrates this,” the report said. “This data corroborates anecdotal evidence of the overall growth of outdoor recreation participation and use of public lands in Montana as well as recent surveys that have been undertaken from a number of industry perspectives.” The Montana State Parks system is sub-divided into six administrative regions: Kalispell (1), Missoula (2), Bozeman (3), Great Falls (4), Billings (5), and Miles City (6/7). Between 2019 and 2021, nearly all regions experienced double-digit growth, with region 2 growing by more than 50%, according to the report. In 2021, the Kalispell and Great Falls regions accounted for more than half of the state’s overall visitation, but the department said compared to 2019 and 2020 the overall share of visitors in the two regions has been on a slight decline. All regions except for 1 and 5 saw visitation growth in 2021. Region 3 saw the highest percent change in 2021, which the department contributed to the re-launch of cave tours at Lewis & Clark Caverns, which were suspended in 2020. The department called the visitation decline in Regions 1 and 5, which was more than 15%, “striking.” “One factor could be the explosive growth that occurred between 2019 and 2020 for these regions as the public pursued camping and water-based recreation, both of which Region 1 offers at many of its parks, as does Region 5 at Cooney Reservoir. Another consideration is the impact of smoke, drought conditions, and inclement weather that limits these kinds of opportunities and the public’s propensity to be outdoors,” the report said. [END] [1] Url: https://dailymontanan.com/briefs/state-park-attendance-down-slightly-from-2020-but-up-from-2019-and-years-prior/ Content is licensed through Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/montanan/