STRAIGHT TO THE TOP

By DENNIS WEBB

Dennis.Webb@gjsentinel.com

Visitation at Colorado National Monument rose last year after a 2022 slump that followed a COVID-inspired 2021 bump.

In 2023 the monument recorded 486,179 recreational visits, up from 480,442 in 2022, according to the National Park Service. Prior to that, visitation had grown from less than 400,000 in 2019 to more than 435,000 in 2020 and nearly 500,000 in 2021.

“Definitely we saw a huge pandemic bump in 2021, so a lot of workers were working from home or teleworking and traveling a lot and seeking the outdoors as a response to the pandemic,” said monument spokesperson Kait Thomas, also the monument’s interpretation and education program manager.

After 2021 a bit of a decrease followed as nationwide travel fell and life returned to normal for many people, she said.

“Now we’re starting to see gradual increases again” in visitation, she said.

Colorado National Monument ranked 10th-highest among national monuments last year in terms of recreation visits, the Park Service says.

“I think we truly are a gorgeous park and we’re the gateway to the Colorado Plateau, essentially,” Thomas said.

She said for national park tourists who might start in Denver and visit Rocky Mountain National Park and then continue west, one of the first parks they reach as they approach canyon country and all the red rocks and formations of the Colorado Plateau is Colorado National Monument.

“I think our proximity to all of that really helps with those (visitation) numbers,” Thomas said.

She said that while there seemed to be a lot of local visitation at Colorado National Monument immediately after the 2021 visitation bump, in 2023 visits to the monument’s visitor center grew by 12%, to 144,729, which the National Park Service attributes to more people coming to the monument from out of town than previously.

While the visitor center attracts a lot of local residents as well, it draws a lot of out-of-towners getting oriented to the monument and planning their visits, Thomas said.

“It’s really great, good to see a lot of new faces coming in,” she said.

Last year’s visitation included 449,186 recreation visits by vehicle, and nearly 4,800 bus passengers. Visitations by bicycle totaled 9,755, down from 11,321 in 2022. The monument tallied 15,607 overnight stays involving recreational vehicles, 20,757 tent overnight stays and just 82 backcountry overnight stays.

Hiker numbers on the Monument Canyon, Serpents and Liberty Cap trails were down between 8.7% and 11.3% last year, respectively totaling 14,069, 21,578 and 9,560 hikers.

Nationwide, the National Park Service reported 325.5 million recreation visits last year, a 4% increase from 2022. As at Colorado National Monument, the agency says the recent trend nationally in visitor numbers “suggests a return to more typical visitation patterns post-pandemic.”

Elsewhere in the region, Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park last year had more than 357,000 recreation visitors last year, up nearly 60,000 from the previous year. Dinosaur National Monument saw a drop in visit numbers, to 326,529 from 351,019. Visits to Arches National Park grew to 1.48 million from 1.46 million.

The Park Service will later use this year’s visitor numbers to estimate the local economic impact of park sites. It previously said that the 480,000-plus visitors in 2022 spent about $34.1 million in local gateway regions while visiting the monument, which supported a total of 438 jobs, $13.3 million in labor income and $42.5 million in economic output in gateway economies.

Looking ahead to this year at Colorado National Monument, Thomas said visitors should expect to see road work involving shoulder maintenance on Rim Rock Drive along the top of the monument. It’s a continuation of work that took place on the east-side hill along the road last year.

“It will occasionally

See TOP, page 18A ➤

Ralph Gjerde, from Pennsylvania, takes a photo on his cell phone while overlooking Grand Junction from the Colorado National Monument on Tuesday. One of the many jewels of the Grand Valley continues to see more visitors in a post-pandemic era.

LARRY ROBINSON/ The Daily Sentinel

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affect folks. There might be short delays of up to 10 minutes,” Thomas said.

She said the Federal Highway Administration this fall may perform maintenance in the three tunnels in the monument. The federal agency does such work because the monument’s roads are federal roads.

Thomas said Colorado National Monument didn’t receive any funding this year from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law for projects but likely will seek such funding in future years.

“It is a really wonderful initiative that’s benefiting a lot of parks with deferred maintenance and infrastructure they need to build up,” she said. “We certainly would value any funds from BIL.”

She said the Park Service did receive Inflation Reduction Act funding that it is using to hire resource management personnel. Those funds will total about $600,000 over six years.

She said the monument also got $493,642 in Great American Outdoors Act funding last year that went to trail repairs on the Canyon Rim Trail and historic road culvert and ditch maintenance on Rim Rock Drive.

“We encourage the community to visit Canyon Rim Trail and enjoy the recent improvements,” she said.

Improvements that were being made to the Saddlehorn Amphitheater are complete but work on the trail leading to the facility isn’t quite finished, Thomas said.

The Colorado National Monument Association, which helped fund that renovation project, said in a news release about the association’s 60th anniversary this year that a concert will be held at the amphitheater to celebrate that site’s reopening on Aug. 2. American Idol contestant Jeneve Rose Mitchell will be performing and tickets will go on sale in mid-April, with further event information to be shared later.