Yellowstone surpasses 3 million visitors in 2015

Yellowstone National Park remains on track to have one of its highest number of annual visitor counts on record.

The park has already surpassed the 3 million mark through August, with four months left in the calendar year.

Yellowstone saw more than 854,000 recreational visits in August, an increase of 10 percent over August 2014.

The running total of 3.1 million recreational visits in the first eight months of this year is 15 percent over 2014.

Each of the park’s five entrances saw an increase in vehicles for the month of August compared to 2014 levels.

Neighboring Grand Teton National Park and other national parks in the Northern Rockies also report visitation numbers ahead of last year.

At Glacier National Park, for example, visitation through August was 1.9 million. That’s 2.1 percent ahead of 2014, which was the busiest year in Glacier’s history.

Glacier remains ahead for year-to-date visitors despite a challenging August when wildfire smoke settled over the park.

During August, an estimated 579,000 visitors entered Glacier, a 14.2 percent from 675,119 the previous year.