90% Reduction In Visitors To National Park

The number of visitors to Snæfellsjökull National Park in October has decreased by 90% between years, Fréttablaðið reported yesterday.

In the last month, an average of nine people have climbed to the Saxhóll crater in the national park each day. Around 15% of visitors to the national park tend to climb Saxhóll.

These figures have been made available by a treadmill which was set up on the steel ladder that runs up Saxhóll. This recorded 265 visitors between the 18th of October and the 18th of November. According to the Environment Agency–and, indeed, it’s pretty obvious–this is an indication of the large reduction in visitor attendance caused by the pandemic. Last year saw 29,000 visitors; this year, it was just over 3,000.

According to national park ranger Jón Björnsson, various improvements have been made to the national park. For example, the car park next to it was renovated and enlarged this summer and the road to it was repaired. He looks forward to following the numbers on the new counter in coming years.

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