This Week in Yellowstone National Park
Sep 17, 2026 · 45 min · 14 segments
This week in Yellowstone National Park, from September 17th to September 23rd, 2026, I'll talk about bears in hyperphagia, tell you why this is the best time to see great grey owls, and share about…
First bit of news here is the superintendent is leaving.
Yellowstone National Park Superintendent Cam Scholle is stepping down in late September after nearly 30 years with the National Park Service, including almost eight years leading Yellowstone.
He's a really cool guy, done a lot for the park.
He's definitely going to be missed.
He's stepping down to become the chief operating officer of the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, the nation's largest conservation foundation.
So they have a very good person that's going to be filling some shoes there.
Since taking over in 2018, Shawley has guided Yellowstone through COVID-19, record visitation, and the historic 2022 floods.
During his tenure, the park invested more than $1.5 billion in conservation and infrastructure.
expanded bison transfers to tribal nations, and launched a major employee housing initiative.
The National Park Service has started a search for Sholley's replacement, but hasn't announced who's going to take the position.
An interim superintendent will be named separately, and from what I hear, it's going to be the deputy superintendent, Mike Trannell, who's a 35-year NPS veteran and served Yellowstone since 2021.
Next bit of news, August visitation.
That's a 3% decrease from August of 2025, when that month saw nearly 882,000 visits.
August 2026 was also 7% lower than August 2021, which was the park's Busiest August.
Through August 2026, Yellowstone has seen just under 3.5 million recreation visits, and that's down 2% from the same period in 2025 and 3% from 2021.
However, 2026 visitation remains slightly below 2024 levels, but exceeds 2023 and 2022.
National Park Service notes that the 2022 visitation was really impacted by the flooding.
The north entrance was not really accessible, so those numbers are kind of just thrown out.
But yeah, the park is still busy.
Had a busy August, but not record-breaking busy.
It's kind of hit a plateau, which is pretty predictable with gas prices, a pause in some international tourism, things like that.
So I don't think this comes as any bit of a surprise.
I think what might come as a surprise, will be the September numbers because right now there are still lines every single morning in West Yellowstone.
First bit of news here is the superintendent is leaving.
Yellowstone National Park Superintendent Cam Scholle is stepping down in late September after nearly 30 years with the National Park Service, including almost eight years leading Yellowstone.
He's a really cool guy, done a lot for the park.
He's definitely going to be missed.
He's stepping down to become the chief operating officer of the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, the nation's largest conservation foundation.
So they have a very good person that's going to be filling some shoes there.
Since taking over in 2018, Shawley has guided Yellowstone through COVID-19, record visitation, and the historic 2022 floods.
During his tenure, the park invested more than $1.5 billion in conservation and infrastructure.
expanded bison transfers to tribal nations, and launched a major employee housing initiative.
The National Park Service has started a search for Sholley's replacement, but hasn't announced who's going to take the position.
An interim superintendent will be named separately, and from what I hear, it's going to be the deputy superintendent, Mike Trannell, who's a 35-year NPS veteran and served Yellowstone since 2021.
Next bit of news, August visitation.
That's a 3% decrease from August of 2025, when that month saw nearly 882,000 visits.
August 2026 was also 7% lower than August 2021, which was the park's Busiest August.
Through August 2026, Yellowstone has seen just under 3.5 million recreation visits, and that's down 2% from the same period in 2025 and 3% from 2021.
However, 2026 visitation remains slightly below 2024 levels, but exceeds 2023 and 2022.
National Park Service notes that the 2022 visitation was really impacted by the flooding.
The north entrance was not really accessible, so those numbers are kind of just thrown out.
But yeah, the park is still busy.
Had a busy August, but not record-breaking busy.
It's kind of hit a plateau, which is pretty predictable with gas prices, a pause in some international tourism, things like that.
So I don't think this comes as any bit of a surprise.
I think what might come as a surprise, will be the September numbers because right now there are still lines every single morning in West Yellowstone.
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