2023 Crater Lake Visitor Numbers Increased as the Park saw Moderate Crowds
More people visited Crater Lake in 2023 than the year prior, but the beautiful national park still saw moderate crowds by recent standards. The Oregonian reports that might be by design.
In 2023, a total 559,976 people visited the park, according to data released this month by the National Park Service, including 416,104 people who visited between June and September. That's a 6% increase over the annual visitor count in 2022, but a far cry from the record 756,344 people who showed up in 2016.
Crater Lake Superintendent Craig Ackerman said while several issues are likely at play, he suspects two main reasons for the recent decline in visitor numbers: unpredictability with wildfires and a concerted effort to reduce marketing of the park.
While wildfires were not a serious problem at Crater Lake in 2023, the possibility that they could be a problem may have been enough to sway some people to visit other, less risky places in the summer, Ackerman said. That's a trend he's seen over the past few years, after several seasons of devastating wildfires.
Meanwhile, park officials in recent years have also been working with state and local tourism agencies to tamp down the marketing of Crater Lake, he said, especially following the enormous crowds that came between 2016 and 2019, on the heels of the National Park Service's centennial celebration.
Located in a rugged, remote stretch of the Cascade Mountains in Southern Oregon, Crater Lake has long struggled to retain staff. When throngs of visitors show up, it has left park rangers scrambling to make sure both the people and the natural environment are protected.
