Newly released data collected by the Public Risk Management Program from the National Park Service system shows that between 2014 and early April 2023, over 2,600 visitors died in national parks. Of those 204 died in 2022 alone.
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In a 2019 statement, National Park Service chief spokesman Jeremy Barnum said there's an average of six deaths each week within the considerable National Park System. That's approximately 312 deaths per year, or one death for every 1 million visitors.
At least 56 people have been reported missing from Grand Canyon National Park since the beginning of 2018 and at least six people have been found dead. This is despite the park not only being smaller but seeing millions fewer visitors than many of the other 424 national park sites.
Despite the outspread rumors about mythical beasts, cannibalistic, and feral population in the National Parks of the US, there is little evidence of their reality. As a matter of fact, most of the missing person cases were due to injuries, old age, and the inability to navigate the trail when hiking alone.
1. Gates of the Arctic National Park and Preserve, Alaska: America's least-visited national park contains no roads or trails. It's a true wilderness experience.
Seven years ago, Brad Ryan and his grandmother, Joy Ryan, set out on the adventure of a lifetime — visiting all 63 U.S. National Parks. Now 41 and 92 years old, the duo will complete their journey this April in American Samoa.
While the National Park System comprises 423 national park sites, only 63 of them have the National Park designation in their names. The other sites fall into different National Park System categories like National Historic Sites, National Monuments, National Seashores, National Recreation Areas, and others.
Why is it called Death Valley? Death Valley was given its forbidding name by a group of pioneers lost here in the winter of 1849-1850. Even though, as far as we know, only one of the group died here, they all assumed that this valley would be their grave.
In 1957, South Dakota's Fossil Cycad National Monument lost its status because so many people — including researchers — had walked off with the plant fossils that inspired the park's designation in the first place.
States without National Parks are: Alabama, Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Idaho (see above,) Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Wisconsin.
Impacts from sources beyond their borders, overcrowding during some parts of the year, air quality issues, invasive species, and even the maintenance backlog in the National Park System all pose threats of varying degrees to some parks.