Lake Mead ranks fifth among nation’s most visited parks

Take that, George Washington Memorial Parkway.

A busy 2015 at Lake Mead National Recreation Area helped the park east of Las Vegas vault past the D.C.-area parkway and back into fifth place among the nation's most visited National Park Service sites.

The 1.5 million-acre recreation area logged 7.2 million visitors last year, a 5 percent increase over 2014.

Only four National Park sites saw more visitors in 2015, according to figures released Wednesday by the Park Service: Blue Ridge Parkway (15 million), Golden Gate National Recreation Area (14.9 million), Great Smoky Mountains National Park (10.7 million), and the Lincoln Memorial (7.9 million).

To land in fifth place for the first time since 2013, Lake Mead edged out George Washington Memorial Parkway in Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia by just over 12,000 visitors and easily out-drew such famed parks as the Grand Canyon, Yellowstone, Yosemite and Zion.

"With hundreds of miles of trails, shoreline and two vast lakes, Lake Mead National Recreation Area remains America's most diverse national recreation area and a popular destination for tourists and locals alike," said Lizette Richardson, who took over as the park's superintendent in August.

The 5 percent jump in visitors at Lake Mead matched the overall increase seen by the Park Service as a whole, which welcomed a record 307 million people to its more than 400 sites in 2015.

That mark is likely to be broken again this year, as the Park Service holds a host of promotions and events to mark the centennial of the National Park system.

"The popularity of national parks is well known, but last year's numbers really are extraordinary," said National Park Service Director Jonathan B. Jarvis in a written statement. "As the National Park Service celebrates its 100th year, we're preparing to welcome more visitors than ever, including a new generation of park supporters and advocates who are discovering their own national park adventures."

Since 1937, more than 416 million people have visited Lake Mead, which is the nation's oldest, largest and still busiest national recreation area.

According to park officials, most of the lake's increase in visitors last year can be traced to a single location. At Lakeview Overlook, a scenic pull-out on the way to the Hoover Dam, "the numbers just about doubled," said park spokeswoman Christie Vanover.

The iconic dam and its bypass bridge are not included within the recreation area — nor are the visitors to those sites — but tourists often stop at Lake Mead on their way to or from the engineering marvels in Black Canyon, Vanover said.

Boulder Basin continues to be the most popular part of the recreation area, with about 2.9 million visitors concentrated there last year. Katherine Landing in Arizona was the most popular spot on Lake Mohave with 1.3 million visitors.

Great Basin National Park still ranks among the nation's least-visited parks, but the 77,000-acre preserve in White Pine County near the Utah border saw record attendance for a second straight year. Some 116,123 people visited the only National Park located entirely in Nevada in 2015, up from the previous record of 107,526 set in 2014.

Among other National Park sites within a few hours drive of Las Vegas, Zion National Park in Utah ranked 24th with more than 3.6 million visitors while Death Valley National Park, which is mostly in California but includes a swath of Nevada west of Beatty, ranked 70th with almost 1.2 million visitors. Mojave National Preserve, in California south of Primm, logged just over 589,000 visitors last year, good enough for 107th on the list.

Contact Henry Brean at hbrean@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0350. Find him on Twitter: @RefriedBrean