A visitor takes a picture at the Watchman Overlook at Crater Lake.

The number of recreation visits was up at Crater Lake National Park in 2023 but significantly down at Oregon Caves National Monument & Preserve.

Lava Beds National Monument, located just south of the Oregon-California state line, also had increased visitation last year.

Nationwide, parks are seeing more visitors after the down years of the coronavirus pandemic. In 2023, 325.5 million visits were made to the hundreds of parks managed by the National Park Service, an increase of 13 million, or 4%, over 2022 figures.

At Crater Lake, the total recreation visits in 2023 was 559,976, a modest increase from 527,259 in 2022. Those figures, however, are still below those of recent years: The pre-pandemic year of 2019 had 704,512 recreation visits, while 2020 had 675,500 and 2021 had 647,651.

Crater Lake officials were unavailable for comment.

At Oregon Caves, the 2023 figure of 32,041 was less than half the 72,923 recreation visits counted in 2022. The historic Oregon Caves Chateau café and dining room remain closed for repairs and rehabilitation. There are currently no dining options available in the park.

The 2023 figures, however, were close to the numbers of visits — 34,202 — in 2021 and well above 2020, which had only 22,789 recreation visits. In 2019, Oregon Caves had 65,006 recreation visitors; in 2016, the figure was 80,613.

In addition, the Illinois Valley Visitor Center, temporarily closed this winter, is scheduled to reopen March 11. The Caves Café is typically open from early May through early October.

At Lava Beds, located about 30 miles south of Klamath Falls, visitation numbers for 2023 totaled 136,164, an increase of 5,195 from 2022.

In 2020 and 2021, Lava Beds’ visitation numbers dipped — 111,258 and 103,946, respectively — because of wildfires and smoke. In 2022 and 2023, “that was not an issue, making it a pleasant experience in visiting the park,” Marc Blackburn, Lava Beds’ manager of visitor service, said in a statement.

In the past couple of years, Lava Beds also marked the 150th anniversary of the Modoc War between the U.S. military and the Modoc, an indigenous people. To mark the moment, the park and its partners hosted several special programs that increased visibility and visitation.

“The park’s visitation has recovered from the challenges of the pandemic,” Superintendent Chris Mengel said. “Visitors want to be outside and explore the many units of the National Park System. We are glad to host them here at Lava Beds.”

Since 2020, Lava Beds has also seen a shift in camping patterns.

Blackburn said that in 2023 the park had “many more campers in May and June than in previous years. In addition, we had 6,181 visitors camping in 2020, an increase of 1,773 campers. The campground is open year-round and is first-come, first-serve.”

Visitation figures for all sites that are part of the National Park Service are available at the Visitor Use Statistics Dashboard at nps.gov/subjects/socialscience/visitor-use-statistics-dashboard.htm, which provides recreation visit statistics for every national park in the U.S. for 2023 and previous years, dating back to 1979 for some parks.

There are 429 parks in the National Park System; 400 counted visitors in 2023. For the first time, there are parks from all 50 states reporting their visitor numbers along with those in the District of Columbia and in four U.S. territories. Five national parks began reporting in 2023, and this is the first year a park from Delaware is included.