Alberta Falls no doubt was a visitor magnet at Rocky Mountain National Park this year/Kurt Repanshek
For the rest of 2014, Rocky Mountain National Park will set an attendance record every day, as October visitation brought year-to-date traffic to more than 3.2 million, a record.
Park officials say October visitation was driven by beautiful fall weather and the fact that Trail Ridge Road remained open until October 26 with only a few temporary closures. Visitation was 305,651 for the month, which is a significant increase from the past five Octobers. Of course, it's a 361 percent increase from last October, when flood damaged roads, chilly weather and the government shutdown greatly impacted visitation. Park visitation year-to-date is 3,263,804, the highest the park has ever received.
Rocky Mountain officials note that determining visitation is a difficult and imprecise effort. Visitation statistics help park managers see overall trends. Fall visitation, particularly on weekends, continues to increase at Rocky Mountain National Park.
Park staff corrected public use statistics procedures for recreation and non-recreation visits beginning in 2012. Starting in 2012, traffic began being counted at Lumpy Ridge and Lily Lake on the park's east side; regression formulas rather than counters are used for the park's west-side minor entrances; Hiker Shuttle riders and visitors who enter the park on horseback are counted as recreational visits; and Sun Valley Road, a county road across from the Kawuneeche Visitor Center, is no longer counted because this road is not administered by the park. Even with these changes, however, visitation stats are still reliably good estimates, the park said in a release.
Many other national parks in the Rocky Mountain West have also seen increases in visitation this year. Visitation to Rocky Mountain likely will continue to rise through 2015 as the park celebrates its centennial year, with the party climaxing in September.
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