Hiking is a major part of outdoor recreation, with 63 million U.S. participants recorded in 2024. Recent figures also show how trail destinations manage demand: Yosemite received 4,285,729 visitors in 2024, while the Appalachian Trail recorded 16.9 million recreation visits in 2025. These statistics describe different measures, places, and years, so they should be read as separate indicators rather than one combined tourism total.
Contents
- Hiking participation in the United States
- Who participates in outdoor recreation
- National park visitation and hiking demand
- Trail scale and backcountry use
- Appalachian Trail visitation by state
- Visitor services, safety, and infrastructure
Hiking participation in the United States
The Outdoor Participation Trends Report 2024 recorded 181.1 million U.S. outdoor recreation participants in 2024, equal to 58.6% of Americans age 6 and older. The outdoor participant base grew 3% from 2023 to 2024 and expanded by 27.5 million people since 2019.
Hiking accounted for 63 million participants in 2024 and was the most popular outdoor-specific activity in the report. Walking, hiking, fishing, camping, bicycling, and running each added an average of 2.1 million participants during the year. These figures measure participation, not trips, overnight stays, or spending, but they establish the size of the potential hiking market.
Outdoor activities overlap substantially. The report found that 85% of hikers also participated in other outdoor activities in 2024. For comparison, 91% of campers also did other outdoor activities. A hiking visitor may therefore appear in several activity categories, and category totals should not be added together.
The age profile also shifted. Participants age 55 and older added 2.3 million people in 2024, accounting for 44% of the total increase from 2023 to 2024. This is relevant to trail destinations because participation growth can come from both new visitors and changing activity levels among established outdoor users.
Who participates in outdoor recreation
The Outdoor Participation Trends Report 2024 recorded different participation rates and activity patterns across demographic groups. Black outdoor participants totaled 20.3 million in 2024, up 12.8% from 2023. Black outdoor participants represented 11.2% of the total participant base, compared with 10.3% in 2023, while the Black outdoor participation rate rose to 50.9%.
Black hiking participation reached 3.2 million in 2024. Hiking represented 7.9% of Black outdoor participants and ranked fourth among outdoor activities for Black participants in the report.
Asian/Pacific Islander hiking participation reached 4.1 million in 2024, and hikers represented 25.3% of that demographic’s outdoor participants. Hiking was the most popular activity among Asian/Pacific Islander participants. The group’s overall outdoor participation rate was 57.7%.
White outdoor participants accounted for 66.9% of the total participant base in 2024, down from 69.7% in 2023. Their outdoor participation rate remained 58.8%. The report also recorded a 10% decline in hiking participation among White participants between 2020 and 2021; that historical change is not a 2024 estimate.
Hispanic outdoor participants accounted for 14.5% of the total participant base in 2024, up from 13.4% in 2023. Their outdoor participation rate rose to 63.6%, and hiking and running were the two most popular outdoor activities for Hispanic participants.
Participation also varied by household and age. The report found that 73% of American children ages 6 to 17 participated in outdoor recreation in 2024, as did 66% of families with children. Among adults, 64% of American men and 53% of American women participated in outdoor recreation.
National park visitation and hiking demand
Large national parks show how broad visitation and hiking-specific use can differ. Yosemite National Park recorded 4,285,729 visitors in 2024, while its statistics recorded 48,968 overnight hikers during the same year. Yosemite has 800 miles of hiking trails. A Yosemite visitor study from 2008 found that 35% of respondents listed hiking as a primary activity; because that study is older, it should not be treated as a current 2024 participation rate.
Grand Canyon National Park recorded 4,919,163 visits in 2024. Its 2025 statistics recorded 55,309 backpacking user nights, 13,048 backcountry permits issued, and 8,265 backcountry permits used. Permit issuance and permit use are separate measures, and neither is equivalent to total park visitation.
The Grand Canyon’s 2025 shuttle system logged 4,791,944 boardings. The park also recorded 104,255 noncommercial Colorado River user days from Lees Ferry to Diamond Creek and 8,064 noncommercial river user days from Diamond Creek to Pearce Ferry. These figures show that hiking destinations often support several forms of recreation beyond trail walking.
Zion National Park’s visitation rose from about 2.6 million in 2010 to more than 5 million at its peak, an increase of about 90%, according to Zion National Park By the Numbers. The same source recorded almost 6.8 million shuttle boardings in 2019 and about 5.2 million in 2022. Shuttle boardings are transportation events, not unique visitors.
Trail scale and backcountry use
Trail mileage provides context for visitor pressure but does not by itself measure trail crowding. Grand Canyon National Park had 595 miles of trails in 2025, including 35 paved miles and 560 unpaved miles. Yosemite has 800 miles of hiking trails, while Zion maintains more than 90 miles of trails.
Rocky Mountain National Park has approximately 355 miles of hiking trails. Its landscape includes 252,123 acres of designated wilderness, equal to 94.8% of the park. The park contains 124 named peaks at or above 8,789 feet, and Longs Peak rises to 14,259 feet.
Rocky Mountain also has 147 lakes covering 1,151 acres. Its recorded biodiversity includes 280 bird species, 66 native mammal species, and 142 confirmed butterfly species. These are destination attributes rather than visitor counts, but they help explain why hiking tourism statistics often sit alongside landscape and wildlife measures.
The Appalachian Trail is 2,197.9 miles long. The Appalachian Trail Conservancy Visitation source recorded 16.9 million recreation visits in 2025, with about 36% of visits occurring on National Park Service-managed sections. The trail crosses multiple states, so a visit recorded in one state is not necessarily a unique person or a complete end-to-end trip.
Appalachian Trail visitation by state
The 2025 state figures show a highly uneven distribution of Appalachian Trail recreation visits. The largest reported totals were in Virginia, New Hampshire, and Pennsylvania.
| State | 2025 visits | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Virginia | 4,306,369 | 23.7% |
| New Hampshire | 2,879,020 | 15.8% |
| Pennsylvania | 2,702,091 | 14.9% |
| New York | 1,604,469 | 8.8% |
| North Carolina | 1,523,824 | 8.4% |
| Massachusetts | 1,075,575 | 5.9% |
| New Jersey | 1,037,730 | 5.7% |
| Georgia | 643,738 | 3.5% |
| Connecticut | 535,327 | 2.9% |
| Vermont | 532,805 | 2.9% |
| Maryland | 518,594 | 2.9% |
| Tennessee | 477,349 | 2.6% |
| West Virginia | 274,164 | 1.5% |
| Maine | 84,548 | 0.5% |
Virginia accounted for 23.7% of reported Appalachian Trail visits in 2025, followed by New Hampshire at 15.8% and Pennsylvania at 14.9%. New York accounted for 8.8%, North Carolina for 8.4%, and Massachusetts for 5.9%. Maine accounted for 84,548 visits, or 0.5%, in the reported state breakdown.
Visitor services, safety, and infrastructure
Tourism demand also appears in the services required to operate busy hiking destinations. Grand Canyon interpretive staff delivered 1,277 programs reaching 115,751 visitors in 2025. The park’s Preventive Search and Rescue team made 97,749 contacts and 18,400 preventive actions, and performed 444 hiker assists.
Zion National Park maintains more than 110 buildings, nearly 90 miles of paved and unpaved roads, 10 water supply systems, 9 wastewater management systems, and 3 developed front-country campgrounds. Its full-time equivalent staff fell from 184 in 2010 to 164 in the latest report.
The environmental workload at Zion was also quantified. Staff removed almost 5 tons of human waste from Scout Lookout toilets in 2021. They removed more than 30,000 bags of trash and recycling weighing almost 2,000 tons, along with more than 2,500 tons of rockfall and flood debris, during 2021.
The latest Zion figures in the supplied national park report recorded 376 emergency medical service responses and 158 search-and-rescue responses in 2025. Rangers and staff delivered more than 1.8 million one-on-one visitor interactions, more than 24,000 junior ranger programs, more than 1,200 programs, hikes, and presentations, and more than 250 distance-learning sessions reaching more than 8,200 students.
Together, these measurements show that hiking tourism is not represented only by participation or arrival counts. Trail length, permits, shuttle use, safety contacts, sanitation, interpretation, and emergency responses all describe the operational footprint of popular outdoor destinations. The figures come from the Outdoor Participation Trends Report 2024, Yosemite National Park Statistics and Yosemite National Park Hiking/Statistics, Grand Canyon National Park Statistics, Rocky Mountain National Park Statistics, Zion National Park By the Numbers, and Appalachian Trail Conservancy Visitation. Legacy figures, including the 2008 Yosemite visitor study and historical Zion comparisons, are retained with their stated dates and are not presented as independently verified current estimates.