Close to 5.5 million people visited Colorado’s four national park locations last year, with three of those spots seeing more visitors compared to 2022 while the most popular national park in the state saw a drop in guests. While the three less-visited spots saw an uptick in visits, the drop of 184,587 guests at Rocky Mountain National Park was substantial enough to mean 100,580 fewer guest visits across all four spots compared to 2022.

Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park remained the least-visited spot of the four national park-designated locations in the Centennial State, but also saw the largest increase in visitation throughout the year. Oddly enough, the park still saw significantly fewer visitors than Colorado National Monument, which seems to get quite a bit less attention at 357,069 Black Canyon guests compared to the monument’s 486,179. Perhaps this is due to Black Canyon’s more remote location.

Here’s a look at how visitation varied at Colorado’s four national parks in 2023, with a year-over-year comparison shown for years since 2019:

• Rocky Mountain National Park: 4,670,053 in 2019; 3,305,199 in 2020 (-1,364,854); 4,434,848 in 2021 (+1,129,649); 4,300,424 in 2022 (-134,424); 4,115,837 in 2023 (-184,587)
• Great Sand Dunes National Park: 527,546 in 2019; 461,532 in 2020 (-66,014); 602,613 in 2021 (+141,081); 493,428 in 2022 (-109,185); 512,219 in 2023 (+18,791)
• Mesa Verde National Park: 556,203 in 2019; 287,477 in 2020 (-268,726); 548,477 in 2021 (+261,000); 499,790 in 2022 (-48,687); 505,194 in 2023 (+5,404)
• Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park: 432,818 in 2019; 341,620 in 2020 (-91,198); 308,910 in 2021 (-32,710); 297,257 in 2022 (-11,653); 357,069 in 2023 (+59,812)

What factors do you think might be at play when it comes to these visitation shifts? Let us know in the comments.

Explore more data here.