The Alpine Visitors Center is the busiest visitor鈥檚 center in all of Rocky Mountain National Park, where roughly 7,000 people come every day to take in the views. But it鈥檚 also a symbol of a park changing with growing demand - more people means more litter, more noise and fewer parking spaces. Visitors looking for the solitude of the great outdoors need to work even harder to find it in the park, and officials have few solutions.
Susan Holtsclaw stands out on the observation deck with her husband and two young sons. Rocky Mountain National Park is special to them. They鈥檝e been visiting almost every year for 15 years.
鈥淲e love to camp and things like that, and we used to be able to come up and find a spot,鈥� she says. 鈥淵ou didn鈥檛 have to reserve ahead of time, you could just come out and throw your stuff in the back of the car and find a place to camp and now you have to plan ahead. It鈥檚 very very different.鈥�
The only reason Holtsclaw could make it this time is because a friend of theirs couldn鈥檛 use their reservation, which was made back in February.
Inside the visitors center, Park Ranger Sam Heindel helps people plan hikes in the alpine tundra landscape more than two miles above sea level. While he鈥檚 glad more people come to witness the beauty of the park, the surge in visitors has its setbacks.
鈥淧eople that don鈥檛 know better we鈥檝e seen parking on the tundra ecosystem, which damages that,鈥� he says.
That鈥檚 an ecosystem that can take centuries to recover from such damage.
鈥淲e are here to preserve the natural environment, but we鈥檙e also here to provide for the enjoyment and education of our visitors and reaching a good balance between those two missions has been a challenge, not just for Rocky, but for all national parks since we were established over 100 years ago,鈥� he adds.
This year, Rocky became the third-most visited national park in the country, behind Great Smoky Mountains and the Grand Canyon, respectively. The leap from fifth-most visited is only one of the handful of visitorship records the park has broken in recent years.
鈥淲e have half the staffing of Yellowstone National Park, and a third the staff of Yosemite National Park, and yet we鈥檝e leapfrogged over both of those national parks in 2015,鈥� says Kyle Patterson, the spokeswoman for Rocky Mountain National Park.
Parking, road rage and illegal camping have become big problems, she says.
鈥淟ast year we were seeing more and more, truly what we would call 鈥榩arking lot rage,鈥欌€� Patterson says, 鈥渨here people would get to our parking lots, and our volunteers or our park staff would indicate that they鈥檇 need to move along, that there was no parking. We had signs up that said: 鈥楴o Parking,鈥� and we had visitors that would just refuse to move.鈥�
The park responded by restricting vehicles in some areas when it鈥檚 really busy. Another thing that鈥檚 been suggested to park officials is raising the price of admission. Rocky鈥檚 admission fee is $20 for the day, but there鈥檚 concern that raising that would put the park out of reach for people who could no longer afford it.
鈥淧arks are still a great bargain compared to a lot of things people pay for to recreate today,鈥� says Melanie Armstrong, a professor with the Masters in Environmental Management program at Western State Colorado University. She used to work for the Parks Service for 15 years.
鈥淢oney is still a barrier to entry,鈥� she adds. 鈥淧eople still struggle to find access and money creates the perception that it鈥檚 not necessarily something that anyone can do regardless of income level.鈥�
Until last year, Armstrong was working at Canyonlands National Park in Utah. That park is currently taking public comment on ways to address high visitor numbers. Other parks, like Denali in Alaska and Yellowstone in Wyoming, are doing the same, all the while considering caps on the number of visitors allowed to enter each day. Armstrong says that idea is even more controversial.
鈥淭his is the kind of thinking that came about in the early days of the environmental movement,鈥� she says. 鈥漎ou know, 鈥榃e need to stop population growth. We need to cut numbers back.鈥� and that kind of argument so easily begins to tread in a space of unequal systems of power and justice.鈥�
Armstrong says one effective strategy she鈥檚 seen are ads that encourage people to visit the park during times that are typically less busy, like early mornings on weekdays.
But what works in one park may not work in another. Rocky faces challenges that are unique among national parks, such as being the connecting lifeline between Grand Lake and Estes Park via Trail Ridge Road.
Based on data park officials collect from this year, the park may seek public comment on what to do in the future.
