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Show Visits to Parks Increased in '83 Visits to National Park areas in Utah last year showed a modest increase over the previous year, despite the disruption of highway travel caused by local flooding in northern Utah and an earthslide that blocked two major highways near : the town of Thistle. For the year, 5,626,163 visitors arrived at the state's 13 National Park areas, up 2 per cent from 5,534,632 who visited in 1982. ' The figure is considered all the more impressive because U.S. Highways 6 and 89 were closed at Thistle from mid-April until December last year. Those roads in summer ac commodate more than 9,000 vehicles daily, and link the population cen ters of norhtern Utah to many of the parklands in southern Utah. Timpanogos Cave National Monument was closed briefly by flooding and earthslides during the summer, and record high water in Lake Powell intruded into developed areas at Hite, Bullfrog and Hall's Crossing in Glen Canyon National Recreation Area. Visitation to individual park areas last year, with 1982 figures in parenthesis, include: Arches National Park 287,875 (down 15 per cent from 339,415); Bryce Canyon National Park, 694,851 (down 1 per cent from 704,796); Canyonlands National Park 101,779 (up 3 per cent from 98,310) Capitol Reef National Park 373,121 (up 13 per cent from 323,458) ; Cedar Breaks National Monument 337,769 (down 11 per cent from 379,252); Dinosaur National Monument 448,313 (up 7 per cent from 416,791). Glen Canyon National Recreation Area 1,975,273 (up 7 per cent from 1,826,572); Golden Spike National Historic Site 178,815 (down 1 per cent from 180,744); Natural Bridges National Monument 56,833 (up 2 per cent from 55,707); Rainbow Bridge National Monument 161,551 (down 6 per cent from 172,126); Timpanogos Cave National Monument 98,475 (down 19 per cent from 122,285; and Zion National Park 1,393,258 (up 2 per cent from 1,361,750). Pipe Spring National Monument in Arizona, administered by the Rocky Mountain Region of the National Park Service, had 28,357 visitors, down 8 per cent from 30,799. Elsewhere in states of the Rocky Mountain Region, National park areas in Colorado attracted 6,026,479 visitors (up 3 per cent from 5,838,8); Wyoming had 6,670,011 visitors (down 16 per cent from 7,925,874); Montana had 2,737,108 visitors (up 20 per cent from 2,178,311); North Dakota had 431,514 visitors (down 37 per cent from 689,590); and South Dakota had 4,127,480 visitors (up 4 per cent from 3,962,274). |