Yellowstone 2009 visitation tops 3 million

YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK, Wyo. (AP) — After another month of record visitation, Yellowstone National Park is close to setting a mark for overall number of visitors for a calendar year.

The park recorded nearly 490,000 visitors in September. That is up almost 12 percent from a year ago, and well above the previous record September visitation of 468,060 set in 1995.

For the first time ever, visitation for the first nine months of the year to Yellowstone topped the 3 million mark. The previous January through September visitation record was 2.97 million, also set in 1995.

The park needs just over 7,500 more visitors in the months of October through December to break the annual record visitation mark of 3,151,343 set in 2007.