People can visit Washington’s three national parks — Mount Rainier, Olympic and North Cascades — for free this Saturday, Sept. 28 in recognition of National Public Lands Day.
The annual event is meant to encourage volunteer participation in the country’s national parks. The National Park Service is celebrating the day by offering free admission to every park across the country.
Usually, a one-day vehicle permit to enter the state’s national parks costs $30 — with the exception of North Cascades, which is always fee-free. The National Park Service offers six free park days throughout the year.
Residents and visitors who volunteer on National Public Lands Day will receive a free national park one-day pass to any national park site.
According to the National Park Service, the annual event has been the nation’s largest single-day volunteer effort since 1994. Last year, over 130 national parks hosted events with 7,600 volunteers providing 41,500 hours of service.
Mount Rainier has seen at least 1.4 million visits this year, as of a preliminary August 2024 report. Olympic has seen about 600,000 visits since March 2024 — the most recent data available — and North Cascades saw far fewer at about 13,000 visits since August 2024.
As of early September, visitors to Mount Rainier no longer need a reservation to enter the popular national park.
– By Grace Deng
Washington State Standard is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Washington State Standard maintains editorial independence.
The comparison data shared at the end of this report are misleading. Comparing one park’s visitation since March 2024 with another “since August 2024” from an August 2024 report summation is comparing six months worth of visits at the height of one park’s annual season with the last month of the summer season for another park. While it is true the two parks see vastly different numbers of visitors, one has multiple entrance stations collecting visitation data along with fees. The other park has no entrance station and has had the cross state highway that traverses its midsection closed for stretches, as well as the access to the Stehekin portion closed to all visitors for months due to wildfires and the efforts to contain them and keep visiting public out of harm’s way.
The limited data available for North Cascades is backcountry permits, while those traveling in the thousands of cars that drive Highway 20, many of which may stop briefly or to take a lengthier hike, are uncounted. In addition, backcountry permits for this August were significantly curtailed. I know because the permit a friend and I were able to procure back in February’s lottery had to be cancelled because the trailhead where we would have entered was closed due to the Forest Service access being closed due to a fire.