Rocky Mountain National Park is one of the most visited national parks in the country, welcoming about 4.5 million visitors annually, most of whom come during the summer.
Among them is Kelly Suda, from De Pere, Wisconsin.
“We came in and we went to Bear Lake first and walked around the lake, and then I walked Sprague Lake,” said Suda, who was visiting with two friends. It’s her first time at Rocky Mountain National Park.
“We went and checked that out and then we've kind of driven around and sat on big rocks and looked over into gorges, and it's been beautiful,” she said.
Suda and her traveling companions had to plan ahead for their trip due to the park's timed-entry system. Visitors must make a reservation in advance to access the park during peak summer months.
Candice Perz, also from De Pere, said their original reservation time of 4 p.m. wasn’t ideal, but they were able to make a last-minute change.
“We called yesterday and ended up getting a noon (reservation.) We just made a new timed entry to get in at noon,” Perz said.
The timed-entry system was first introduced during the COVID-19 pandemic when the park saw a surge in visitors. This year, it has been made permanent.
Kyle Patterson, a management specialist with Rocky Mountain National Park, said the issues the new system aims to address date back over a decade.
"Starting in 2012 through 2019, Rocky Mountain National Park experienced about a 44% increase in visitation—about a million and a half more visitors in a relatively short period of time," Patterson said.
"We really started seeing some significant impacts as a result of that rapid visitation increase."
Those impacts include miles of social trails formed by visitors straying off designated paths, which can lead to damaged plants and soil degradation. The effects are especially pronounced in sensitive wetland and riparian areas, as well as the tundra ecosystem at higher elevations.
"The tundra is extremely fragile and can take hundreds of years to recover," Patterson said. "If you go off the trail, and then 10 of your friends step on the same spot, it can really harm a habitat or an ecosystem like the tundra."
In addition to increased demand for visitor facilities and parking, there has been a rise in human waste along trails. All of this puts pressure on the park, its ecosystem, and the staff responsible for maintaining it.
“We don't have more staff. We don't have more infrastructure. We don't have a higher budget. But yet the visitation continues to increase,” said Patterson.
Other places in the region have also implemented timed entry systems. Arches National Park in Utah and Hanging Lake, a popular hike near Glenwood Springs, now require reservations.
Flattening the bell curve
Patterson said Rocky Mountain National Park had previously tried other crowd control methods, such as shuttle buses to trailheads, but those didn’t alleviate the surge in visitors at peak times. That’s when the park began working to flatten the bell curve.
“We're trying to have people come from six o'clock in the morning to six o'clock at night,” she said. “People might be able to find parking spaces, stay on the trail, and we’ll be able to get to bathrooms to clean them, rather than sitting in gridlock of park visitors.”
The reservation system is now a permanent fixture at the park during peak summer months and into early fall. There have already been visible improvements in parking access and traffic, and Patterson said they hope to quantify environmental improvements, such as fewer social trails. However, the system remains a work in progress, particularly in educating locals, some of whom feel their access has been restricted.
“We certainly hear that more from locals,” Patterson said. “People say, ‘I moved to this area because Rocky is my beloved park, and I want to be able to go in whenever I want.’ That's something we’ve been discussing a lot with our local communities.”
Patterson added that many locals appreciate the new system, especially being able to find parking at popular trailheads.
Spontaneity isn’t entirely lost, though. A limited number of reservations are released every evening at 7 p.m. for those looking to visit the following day.
At the visitor center near the park’s entrance, Karla Keegan from Omaha, Nebraska, reflected on the changes, having visited many times before the new system was in place.
“ Honestly, I felt that the reservation system, while it was a bit cumbersome, I think it was actually quite smart just because when we went to park in different places like Bear Lake and things like that, the parking was completely taken up and it was very hard to get around. So I think while yes, it's a little hard sometimes to figure out the timing, I can absolutely understand why they implemented something like that. And I think it's actually quite smart, and so I highly recommend those to still come cause it's fabulous and you'll be able to not run into so many people,” said Keegan.
The timed-entry system for Rocky Mountain National Park runs from May 24 through mid-October.
This story is part of the “Loved to Death” series, which examines the impact of increasing numbers of visitors to the region and how communities are navigating the challenge of balancing economic benefits with the environmental toll.
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