Alaska’s national parks show sharply different visitation patterns by location and year. The National Park Service’s Annual Visitation Report by Years: 2015 to 2025 reports recreational visits for each calendar year. The figures below keep the measurement year and park geography explicit.
Contents
- How to read these visitation figures
- The 2019 baseline
- The 2020 disruption and 2021 partial rebound
- The 2022 and 2023 recovery
- Coastal parks in 2024 and 2025
- Interior parks in 2024 and 2025
How to read these visitation figures
Every number in this article is a recreational-visit count reported for the named national park or preserve and calendar year. A visit count is not a count of unique people, and the figures should not be treated as a direct measure of overnight stays or trip length. The source label for all figures is the National Park Service’s Annual Visitation Report by Years: 2015 to 2025.
The comparison uses two practical groupings. Coastal Alaska includes Glacier Bay, Katmai, Kenai Fjords, and Lake Clark. Interior Alaska includes Denali, Gates of the Arctic, Kobuk Valley, and Wrangell-St. Elias. These labels describe the grouping used here; they do not change the park names or the source’s reported counts.
The available series covers a pre-disruption reference year, the 2020 disruption, 2021, the 2022 and 2023 recovery period, and the 2024 and 2025 counts. Because the source reports each year separately, a later figure should be read as that year’s count rather than as a forecast.
The 2019 baseline
The 2019 figures establish the pre-disruption scale for eight Alaska national parks and preserves. Glacier Bay led the coastal group with 672,087 recreational visits. Kenai Fjords recorded 356,601, while Katmai recorded 84,167 and Lake Clark recorded 17,157. In the interior group, Denali recorded 601,152 visits. Wrangell-St. Elias recorded 74,518, Kobuk Valley 15,766, and Gates of the Arctic 10,518.
| Park or preserve | Geography used here | Recreational visits, 2019 |
|---|---|---|
| Glacier Bay | Coastal | 672,087 |
| Denali | Interior | 601,152 |
| Kenai Fjords | Coastal | 356,601 |
| Wrangell-St. Elias | Interior | 74,518 |
| Katmai | Coastal | 84,167 |
| Lake Clark | Coastal | 17,157 |
| Kobuk Valley | Interior | 15,766 |
| Gates of the Arctic | Interior | 10,518 |
The 2019 spread is substantial. Glacier Bay and Denali were the two largest counts in this set, while Gates of the Arctic and Kobuk Valley were below 16,000 recreational visits. That difference matters when interpreting a statewide list: Alaska’s national parks do not represent one uniform visitation market, even when their numbers are reported in the same unit.
The coastal baseline also separates the parks within that group. Glacier Bay’s 672,087 visits were higher than Kenai Fjords’ 356,601, while Katmai and Lake Clark had much smaller reported counts of 84,167 and 17,157. For trip planning, these figures provide context for why a statewide average would conceal the variation among destinations.
The 2020 disruption and 2021 partial rebound
The 2020 counts were markedly different across the parks. Denali recorded 54,850 recreational visits, Gates of the Arctic 2,872, Glacier Bay 5,748, Katmai 51,511, Kenai Fjords 115,882, Kobuk Valley 11,185, Lake Clark 4,948, and Wrangell-St. Elias 16,655.
In 2021, the reported counts were Denali 229,521; Gates of the Arctic 7,362; Glacier Bay 89,768; Katmai 24,764; Kenai Fjords 411,782; Kobuk Valley 11,540; Lake Clark 18,278; and Wrangell-St. Elias 50,189. These are calendar-year counts, so they show the level recorded in each year without claiming that every park followed the same recovery path.
| Park or preserve | 2020 visits | 2021 visits |
|---|---|---|
| Denali | 54,850 | 229,521 |
| Gates of the Arctic | 2,872 | 7,362 |
| Glacier Bay | 5,748 | 89,768 |
| Katmai | 51,511 | 24,764 |
| Kenai Fjords | 115,882 | 411,782 |
| Kobuk Valley | 11,185 | 11,540 |
| Lake Clark | 4,948 | 18,278 |
| Wrangell-St. Elias | 16,655 | 50,189 |
The 2021 figures therefore do not form a simple, identical rebound for every park. Kenai Fjords recorded 411,782 visits, while Katmai recorded 24,764. Kobuk Valley changed from 11,185 in 2020 to 11,540 in 2021, and Gates of the Arctic changed from 2,872 to 7,362. Reading the parks individually is important because the recovery levels differed by destination.
The 2022 and 2023 recovery
The National Park Service report lists another set of distinct annual counts for 2022. Denali recorded 427,562 recreational visits, Gates of the Arctic 9,457, Glacier Bay 545,758, Katmai 33,908, Kenai Fjords 389,943, Kobuk Valley 16,925, Lake Clark 18,187, and Wrangell-St. Elias 65,236.
For 2023, the reported counts were Denali 498,722, Gates of the Arctic 11,045, Glacier Bay 703,659, Katmai 33,763, Kenai Fjords 387,525, Kobuk Valley 17,616, Lake Clark 16,728, and Wrangell-St. Elias 78,305.
| Park or preserve | 2022 visits | 2023 visits |
|---|---|---|
| Glacier Bay | 545,758 | 703,659 |
| Denali | 427,562 | 498,722 |
| Kenai Fjords | 389,943 | 387,525 |
| Wrangell-St. Elias | 65,236 | 78,305 |
| Katmai | 33,908 | 33,763 |
| Lake Clark | 18,187 | 16,728 |
| Kobuk Valley | 16,925 | 17,616 |
| Gates of the Arctic | 9,457 | 11,045 |
Glacier Bay’s 2023 count of 703,659 was the largest reported figure in this two-year recovery comparison. Denali followed with 498,722, and Kenai Fjords recorded 387,525. At the smaller-count end, Gates of the Arctic recorded 11,045, while Kobuk Valley recorded 17,616 and Lake Clark 16,728. Katmai’s reported count was nearly unchanged between the two years: 33,908 in 2022 and 33,763 in 2023.
Coastal parks in 2024 and 2025
The 2024 coastal figures were 736,282 visits at Glacier Bay, 36,230 at Katmai, 419,468 at Kenai Fjords, and 18,505 at Lake Clark. In 2025, the same parks recorded 740,044, 34,479, 425,369, and 19,778 recreational visits, respectively.
| Coastal park or preserve | 2024 visits | 2025 visits |
|---|---|---|
| Glacier Bay | 736,282 | 740,044 |
| Kenai Fjords | 419,468 | 425,369 |
| Katmai | 36,230 | 34,479 |
| Lake Clark | 18,505 | 19,778 |
Glacier Bay remained the largest coastal count in both years, with 736,282 visits in 2024 and 740,044 in 2025. Kenai Fjords was the next-largest coastal count, at 419,468 and 425,369. Katmai’s reported count moved from 36,230 to 34,479, while Lake Clark’s moved from 18,505 to 19,778.
These figures also show why “coastal Alaska” is too broad to describe a single visitation level. The 2025 counts range from 19,778 at Lake Clark to 740,044 at Glacier Bay, with Katmai and Kenai Fjords between them. Each value is a separate park-level recreational-visit count for 2025.
Interior parks in 2024 and 2025
The 2024 interior figures were 466,227 visits at Denali, 11,907 at Gates of the Arctic, 17,233 at Kobuk Valley, and 81,670 at Wrangell-St. Elias. In 2025, Denali recorded 543,300, Gates of the Arctic 14,923, Kobuk Valley 7,786, and Wrangell-St. Elias 108,840.
| Interior park or preserve | 2024 visits | 2025 visits |
|---|---|---|
| Denali | 466,227 | 543,300 |
| Wrangell-St. Elias | 81,670 | 108,840 |
| Kobuk Valley | 17,233 | 7,786 |
| Gates of the Arctic | 11,907 | 14,923 |
Denali was the largest interior count in both years, with 466,227 recreational visits in 2024 and 543,300 in 2025. Wrangell-St. Elias followed at 81,670 and 108,840. Gates of the Arctic recorded 11,907 in 2024 and 14,923 in 2025, while Kobuk Valley recorded 17,233 and 7,786.
The 2025 interior range was therefore wide: 543,300 visits at Denali compared with 7,786 at Kobuk Valley. Gates of the Arctic’s 14,923 was also below Wrangell-St. Elias, and the park-level figures should be retained when comparing possible destinations. The National Park Service source reports these as 2025 recreational visits, not estimates or forecasts.
For a current trip-planning snapshot, the 2024 and 2025 figures provide the latest two annual observations in this series. They can be read alongside the 2019 baseline and the 2020–2023 figures to distinguish long-run context from a single year’s result, while keeping each park’s geography and measurement year visible.