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Show X Pork Visitation in Area Continues Upward Spiral f Visits to area national parks f and monuments continued to L show phi-nominal increases k this year, according to figures released late last week by the r National Park Service. . Arches National Park noted a -48 per cent increase in r travel, with 36.291 visitors checking in during the month k of May as compared to 24,443 . a year ago. Total visits to date . at Arches amount to 80,576. as r compared to 57,637 to the end of May in 1975. A large increase was noted in park river travel--an in- crease of 106 per cent. In y numbers, however, this was a k jump from 70 persons to 144 this year. Canyonlands National Park showed a total increase of 21 t per cent in May, with 15,550 k visitors traveling in the park compared to 12,800 a year ago. Districts within the park all noted increases except the Island in the Sky, which showed a decrease. Island in the Sky registered 3,438; Needles listed 10.888 and the Maze showed a tremendous increase to 1,080 up a fantastic fantas-tic 165 per cent over last year. To date, a total of 31,436 people have visited Canyon-lands Canyon-lands compared with 23,300 a year ago. Natural bridges National Monument-administered by the Canyonlands office in Moab--listed 7,688 visitors, compared with 7,233 a year , ago. Park officials are expecting expect-ing visitation at Bridges to go up considerably this year, however, with the completion of paving work on Utah Highway 95 sometime later this month, which will make the cross-state highway hard-surfaced hard-surfaced all the way from Blanding to Hanksville. Bridges Brid-ges is only a few miles from U-95. Overnight visits also increased in-creased in the park during the month, with the sharpest increase coming at Canyonlands, Canyon-lands, where 7,153 campers enjoyed overnight stays compared com-pared with 5,949 a year ago in May. All areas of all local parks and monuments are now fully staffed, and all facilities are open, according to park officials. |
