RMNP visitorship falls, but these Colorado national parks saw an increase: data

DENVER (KDVR) — People travel from around the world to see Colorado’s natural beauty, often visiting the state’s national parks, sites and monuments to grasp what the region offers. But in 2023, Colorado didn’t see as many of those visitors as in years past.

The U.S. Department of the Interior releases annual data on how many, and what type, of visitors. The total visitor data for 2023 nationally showed a record number of national park site visitors, with the government reporting 325.5 million people took to the nation’s sites.

That beats the 2022 numbers of 312 million visitors and represents more than a 4% growth rate. However, Colorado’s recreational visits to national park sites fell by 2.1%, from 7.9 million to just under 7.8 million from 2022 to 2023.

Colorado has four national parks and numerous historic sites, monuments and areas that the Department of the Interior oversees. FOX31 took a look at a handful of national parks to see how visitation rates have changed. The sites are:

• Bent’s Old Fort National Historic Site
• The Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park
• Colorado National Monument
• Curecanti National Resource Area
• Dinosaur National Monument
• Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument
• The Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve
• Hovenweep National Monument
• Mesa Verde National Park
• Rocky Mountain National Park
• The Sand Creek Massacre National Historic Site

For those Colorado national parks listed above alone, visitation numbers appear to have trended down in the past year, according to Department of the Interior data. The below table shows the difference from last year to 2022, in addition to a decade earlier in 2013.

Some sites, such as Colorado’s brand-new Amache National Historic Site, do not have data from last year. The final Colorado national monument, the Yucca House, is only 35 acres and can only be accessed through private lands. The site has no visitor facilities or services.

Notably, visitation to Colorado’s most well-known park, Rocky Mountain, fell by almost 4.3%.

The biggest positive change in visitorship was that of the Sand Creek Massacre National Historic Site, which rose from 4,772 visitors to 5,885, a 23% increase.

Close behind was the Black Canyon of the Gunnison, which went from 297,257 visitors in 2022 to 257,069 recreational visits in 2023, which is over 20% growth.

The largest decrease in visitorship was to Bent’s Old Fort Historic Site, which dropped from 26,057 visitors to 19,718 in 2023 — a change of 24.3%.

Rocky Mountain National Park still sees millions of visitors

Rocky Mountain National Park had the 19th-highest number of visitors for all national parks in 2023, reporting 4.1 million recreation visits. That also represents 1.26% of all national park visits, according to NPS.

The park has made significant strides in returning to pre-pandemic visitation numbers. The area saw 4.7 million recreational visits in 2019, according to the National Park Visitor Use Statistics Data Explorer. This fell to 3.305 million in 2020 before rising again to 4.4 million recreational visits in 2021.

But, after reaching that number, recreational visits have gradually continued to drop — 4.3 million visitors were reported in 2022, but only 4.1 million in 2023.

The park implemented a pilot reservation system for timed entry in 2020 and has kept in place since, with plans to do something similar in 2024. The 2023 program had two options, park access to most areas of RMNP, excluding the Bear Lake Corridor, or Park Access Plus, which included the Bear Lake Corridor.

The timed entry permits will work very similarly in 2024. Option one includes access to Bear Lake Road, with options to reserve an entry time between 5 a.m. and 6 p.m.

Option two allows visitors access to the rest of the park, with a timed entry window between 9 a.m. and 2 p.m. The reservation system will be enacted Friday, May 24 through Oct. 15 for most of the park, and through Oct. 20 for the Bear Lake Road Corridor.

Also similarly to 2023, reservations to enter the park will be offered through scheduled release dates to customers at recreation.gov. The schedule to reserve RMNP timed entry permits is:

• Beginning at 8 a.m. MT on Wednesday, May 1. This round of reservations will be available to enter the park from May 24 through June 30.
• The next release will occur on June 1, for July and any remaining days that have not been booked for June.
• On July 1, reservations will be available for  August and any remaining days that have not been booked for July.
• On Aug. 1, reservations will be available for September and any remaining days in August that have not been booked.
• On Sept. 1, reservations will be available for October and any remaining days in September that have not been booked. 

The timed entry permits allow visitors access to the park without over-use. RMNP saw a 44% increase in visitation from 2012 to 2019, according to the park.