Crater Lake visitor numbers continue to fall as national park faces multiple challenges

PORTLAND – Crater Lake’s visitor numbers continued to fall in 2024, with the Oregon national park posting its lowest annual count in more than a decade.
The remote park, famous for its blue-hued caldera lake, has seen a steady decline in visitors since 2016, when a record 756,344 people visited during the National Park Service’s centennial celebrations. In 2024, the park counted 504,942 visitors, the lowest number since 2012, according to federal statistics.
Last year’s count was a 10% decrease from 2023, and a 21% decrease from the park’s 10-year average. Annual visitor numbers have declined in six of the past eight years.
The trend at Crater Lake differs from other Pacific Northwest national parks. In 2024, Olympic National Park saw a near-record 3.7 million visitors. At Mount Rainier, the annual visitor count has held steady at around 1.6 million visitors for the last four years. North Cascades, a much more remote park, posted its lowest visitor count on record at only 16,485 people last year.
Scott Clemans, a regional spokesperson for the National Park Service, said that the Crater Lake numbers might not be accurate. He attributed the lower numbers to technical issues with the traffic counters in the park, which give the agency its visitor counts.
“If we look at other factors such as our concession operations, the numbers there are very similar to 2023,” Clemans said.
The concessioner recorded 14,381 “rooms sold” at Crater Lake last year, Clemans said, compared to 15,535 in 2023, when the Crater Lake Lodge was open later in the season for a solar eclipse.
Technical issues aside, park officials have previously given a variety of potential reasons for the steady decline in Crater Lake attendance, including gas prices, trail closures, wildfires, extreme weather patterns and the lack of electric vehicle charging stations inside the park.
Crater Lake was affected by one large wildfire in 2024 that forced the park to close its north entrance for several weeks. The blaze also resulted in the cancellation of the Crater Lake Rim Runs event in August.
Earlier in the year, the park underwent a dramatic change in concessioners, the private companies that run Crater Lake Lodge, as well as campgrounds, general stores and gift shops in the park. Former concessioner Aramark was forced out after being accused of a litany of wrongdoings, many of which came to light in an investigation by The Oregonian/OregonLive last winter.
The National Park Service approved a new concessioner, ExplorUS, which took over last spring. The Kansas-based company has promised a “clean turn of the page” at the troubled park.
Will Boas, vice president of operations for the company, said in a statement that the park enjoyed “strong visitation” in 2024, but noted that ExplorUS is looking ahead to the 2025 season.
“For 2025, visitors now have more ways to access some of the park’s most popular activities and lodging,” with online dining reservations at explorecraterlake.com and camping reservations now available on recreation.gov, Boas said.
Closures that were blamed in part for some of the previous years’ lower crowd numbers are expected to continue in the coming years. Ongoing work on Rim Drive, the road that circles the caldera, is expected to continue for the next few years, resulting in sporadic “hard closures” of the drive, the park said. The Cleetwood Cove Trail, which offers the only access to the waters of Crater Lake, will close for a rehabilitation project in 2026, blocking access to swimming and boating until at least 2029.
The National Park Service has also seen mass firings and budget cuts across the country, including in the Pacific Northwest. The specific impacts at Crater Lake are unclear, however, as the agency has declined to offer any details about the cuts.
“The National Park Service is hiring seasonal workers to continue enhancing the visitor experience as we embrace new opportunities for optimization and innovation in workforce management,” the agency said in a statement earlier this year. “We are focused on ensuring that every visitor has the chance to explore and connect with the incredible, iconic spaces of our national parks.”