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The Corona year brought a record number of visitors to the Eifel National Park.
The nature reserve had more than 1.3 million visitors in 2020, said National Park spokesman Michael Lammertz of the German press agency.
That is a record and corresponds to an increase of around 50 percent compared to previous years.
Visitors are automatically counted at the large entrances to the national park.
The number of punished violations has increased sixfold, said Lammertz.
This included wild camping, lighting campfires or leaving the path.
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National parks have the highest protection status among nature reserves in Germany.
The 11,000 hectare forest area is located in the west of North Rhine-Westphalia and has been a national park since 2004.
There are 16 of these parks across Germany.
"The Eifel National Park has clearly exceeded its capacity limits in some places," reported Lammertz.
Parking lots and popular visitor destinations were overcrowded on nice weekends.
The national park had stopped offering free hikes with a ranger in mid-March for reasons of infection protection.
The foresters were then instead, among other things, in the area control.
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With the first lockdown in spring, many people came into nature, where the risk of infection with the dangerous virus is low.
The run also lasted during the autumn break and November.
In the opinion of the hiking expert, things will stay that way for the time being: "As long as trips abroad are not possible, we expect a continued high number of visitors to the national park," said Lammertz.
It is basically nice that people discovered the local nature.
The national park is currently not advertising.