Rocky Mountain National Park is scheduled to reopen on May 27, 2020/Kurt Repanshek file
Editor's note: This updates with the park opening Wednesday, and outlines plans to move to a timed-entry system on June 4.
Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado started to slowly reopen to the public on Wednesday, with staff monitoring visitors' behavior to determine which areas remain open and how many people will be allowed in the park.
On June 4 the monitoring will be a bit easier, as on that day the park will move temporarily to a timed-entry system that will require visitors to make reservations.
"This system will more safely manage the pace and flow of visitor use, reduce crowding, and provide an improved visitor experience in alignment with the park’s safe operational capacity," said Superintendent Darla Sidles.
Reservations to enter the park will go on sale through www.recreation.gov at 8 a.m. Mountain Time on Thursday. The first reservation window will run from June 4 through July 31. The next release will be on July 1, for the month of August and any remaining days that have not been booked for July.
On August 1, reservations will be available for the month of September and any remaining days that have not been booked for August. On September 1, reservations will be available for the month of October and any remaining days in September that have not been booked.
Permits issued using the reservation system will allow park visitors to enter the park within two-hour windows of availability between 6 a.m. through 5 p.m. This process will facilitate advance payment of entrance fees, minimize contact between park entrance station staff and visitors and limit congestion in parking lots. The permit system will apply to all areas of the park.
Fees range from $15 per day for someone entering the park on foot or bicycle, to $25 per day for private vehicles. At recreation.gov, once you set up an account you will select the day of your visit and your preferred time, add it to your cart and make the payment.
The initial opening phase allocates approximately 60 percent of the park’s maximum parking capacity which works out to 13,500 visitors per day, or 4,800 vehicles. Park staff will monitor our ability to operate with present health guidelines and adapt the system accordingly.
The booking system will be for arrivals, in blocks of two hours beginning at 6 a.m. through 5 p.m. For example, 6-8 a.m., 8-10 a.m., 10 a.m.-noon, etc. It includes advance payment of entrance fees, minimizing contact between park entrance station staff and visitors. The permit system will apply to all areas of the park (see below for more information).
There is no length-of-stay requirement, you may leave the park at any time. The only restriction is on when you can enter the park. You must enter within your reserved 2-hour window.
Visitors who have an annual park pass still need to reserve their visit, and will be charged only the $2 reservation fee.
Once you make a reservation, you'll have to print out the receipt and display it on your dashboard. The reservation only applies to access to the park, it does not guarantee access to all locations within the park. The most popular areas of the park such as Bear Lake, Alpine Visitor Center and Wild Basin could still experience vehicle restrictions due to parking limitations and congestion.
You can find an FAQ page here.
For now, the park's visitor centers will remain closed. While many outlying areas will reopen, the Wild Basin area will remain closed to all public access during this initial phase.
Trail Ridge Road will be open to Rainbow Curve on the east side and Colorado River Trailhead on the west side. Park snowplow operators continue to plow along the roadways and parking lots of Trail Ridge Road, and the full roadway will open as soon as that is completed, weather conditions permitting.
Fall River Road will be not be open to motorized vehicles, but will open to bicyclists and pedestrians. While much of the park will be accessible for visitors to enjoy, a return to full operations will continue to be phased and services will be limited. Park visitors’ actions will help determine if areas remain open.
Rocky Mountain National Park is the third-most visited national park in the country with more than 4.6 million visitors last year. Visitors experience a high level of congestion in many areas of the park from late May through early October. In 2019, visitation from June through September was over 3.2 million visitors. In July of last year alone, almost 1 million people visited the park.
Park staff will continue to monitor all park functions to ensure that visitors adhere to CDC guidance for mitigating risks associated with the transmission of COVID-19 and take any additional steps necessary to protect public health.
Winter-like conditions exist in high elevation areas of the park. Bear Lake currently has 14 inches of snow. During the ongoing health crisis, it is critical to make wise choices to keep the park rangers and first responders out of harm’s way.
Protect wildlife. Obey speed limits and be aware of wildlife. During the closure, due to lack of vehicular traffic, park rangers have observed more wildlife congregating adjacent to or on internal park roads.
Visitors are warned to watch out for wildlife, which have been more visible along roadways during the park's closure/Kurt Repanshek file
Road Construction
Road construction is ongoing on US 36 inside of Rocky Mountain National Park. The work is taking place on a 3-mile section of US 36, just west of Bear Lake Road junction to east of Deer Ridge Junction. This section of road will be closed nightly from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m., Sunday nights through Friday mornings. There will be no nightly closures on Friday and Saturday nights. When the road reopens each morning at 7 a.m. to traffic, motorists should expect delays and a rough surface.
Trail Construction:
Major trail construction continues to take place in the Alluvial Fan area after a major flood in 2013, destroyed the existing infrastructure. The park trail crew is staging a variety of material and equipment in the west Alluvial Fan parking lot and will continue construction of the accessible West Alluvial Fan Trail. Trail and boulder access to the Roaring River from the West Alluvial Fan Parking lot will be closed to park visitors from June 1 to July 31, in the Alluvial Fan area.
Campgrounds
Moraine Park and Glacier Basin Campgrounds will be partially open on June 4, with approximately half of the campsites available for reservations. Aspenglen, Timber Creek, and Longs Peak campgrounds will remain closed for the foreseeable future and may be re-evaluated for partial opening later in the summer.
Wilderness Backcountry Campsites
Wilderness camping permits will be issued beginning May 27 through the autumn.
Shuttle Bus Operations
Shuttle bus operations within the Bear Lake Road corridor will begin on May 27. In order to practice proper social distancing to minimize community spread of COVID-19, the capacity of the shuttle buses in the Bear Lake Corridor will be limited to 15 passengers per trip. Wear cloth face coverings while riding in the bus. It is unknown at this time whether the Hiker Shuttle from the Estes Park Visitor Center will be operating this summer.
Comments
Many of us want to start visiting many parks. How can we get an Annual Pass and avoid spending over $500 for individual park fees over the spring and summer?
While some parks are still free entry, some are starting to charge like Grand Canyon and Rocky Mountain NP.
Let us pray that this timed entry insanity does not spread to other parks.
I have a National Park passport, if the visitor centers are not open will there still be a way to get my cancelation stamp when I come to the park?
While I understand the need to limit and control the amount and flow of visitors, this timed entry process seems crazy. So instead of a 7-day $35 pass it's $27 ($25+$2 reservation fee-reserveamerica is going to come out smelling like a rose) for one day? Okay, I can deal with the cost difference as the parks need it. But if I don't hit my 2-hour window I'm SOL on entering the park that day.
My family is going to be in Grand Lake in August. Going in to the park is obviously on the list, but now we need to pick the day way in advance instead of day of depending on the weather. Who wants to hike in the rain when you have the ability to go another day? Guess what, we will because that's our day.
Not a fan of this plan. Why not count cars and adjust accordingly, being fluid in the vehicles in and out? When it's full it's full, just like the Bear Lake parking lot. Either you wait or come back later.
At least some parks with closed visitor's centers have unigrid and other brochures, and passport cancellation stamps and ink pad, outside of the V.C. on tables, with sanitizer spray bottle for cleaning off the stamp handle before you use it. I can't guarantee that every park will do that, I can't imagine only a couple of parks figured out to do that. Passport stamps are the only reason a substantial fraction of visitors even set foot in the V.C.
Bill-- The first park you visit that collects entrance fees will be happy to sell you an annual pass. Only a handful of parks will institute entrance time reservations: those with massive traffic through only a few bottleneck entrances like Rocky Mountain, Zion, I would suspect Arches, etc. If your first RecFee park is one with reservations, you can go online to buy your annual pass, although then the money may go to USGS. Once you receive the pass, you can enter the pass number in recreation.gov to only pay the $2 reservatoon fee. If the uusgs website for online pass purchases was set up right, it would give you your pass number immediately, and you wouldn't have to wait for it to be mailed. I wouldn't bet on that site being set up right.
rmnpco--
Looking at the ROMO FAQ: https://www.nps.gov/romo/planyourvisit/fees.htm#timedentryfaq
1) at 4800 passes per day, plus campground and wilderness reservations that don't need to purchase a separate entrance reservation, all days won't/didn't sell out the first day.
2) 10% of the entrance reservations each day are held back until 8am MDT 2 days before.
3) While I don't recommend it because it stops other people from visiting the park, if you have an annual pass you can easily game the system. You are allowed to purchase entrance reservations for more than one day, so in theory you could block out 3 or 4 days at 8-10 (assuming you'll be close to the west entrance when you're in Grand Lake) at $2 each. That is meant for people staying outside the park who want to visit more than one day, but it isn't like campground reservations where if you miss the first day you lose all the other days, too.
My understanding of the thinking behind the timed entrance reservations is to prevent long lines of cars waiting for hours at each entrance, then scrambling for Bear Lake or other high-priority parking. [Like Disneyland at opening.] While there may be unforeseen negative effects, I think it's an experiment worth trying this year, especially if they will adjust on the fly. Maybe more than 10% should be held back for 48 hour lead time, maybe a few percent each day should be first come first serve credit card only, maybe separate reservations for east vs west side.
The issue is how to collect entrance fees without putting the fee-collector at risk from interacting with thousands of people per day, and prevent long traffic jams of visitors all trying to get through the entrance at the same time, or being held in line there to let congestion in the park dissapate. In other parks, NPS is trying to set up ATM-like credit card entrance station kiosks (like the left 24hr lane at Grand Canyon). They make the payment transaction no-tough, greatly reducing the exposure of the VUAs, but visitors paying at self service credit card kiosks are slower than VUAs handling the transaction, so that would increase the line at peak times at a place like Rocky Mountain NP.
Tomp2, they will not let me enter RMNP without the physical pass. I will pay 100$ to visit the park 4 times this week and will STILL have to pay $80 somewhere else for an annual pass.
Ridiculous!