Rocky Mountain National Park Sees Increased Demand From Visitors During COVID Pandemic
ESTES PARK, Colo. (CBS4) – Even while navigating the COVID-19 pandemic, Colorado's largest fire on record and restrictions on occupancy, Rocky Mountain National Park still welcomed more than 3.3 million visitors in 2020. Though nearly 1 million fewer visitors than in 2019, staff at RMNP said the demand was clearly higher for access to the park in 2020 compared to years past.
"National parks and public lands are a respite for people," said Kyle Patterson, Public Affairs Officer for RMNP. "The public lands in general saw a huge increase last year. Rocky was no exception."
The park was closed for two months at the start of the pandemic as the park tried to understand the nature of the virus while also protecting the older demographic that heavily populates Estes Park.
"That's the longest the park has been closed in decades," Patterson told CBS4's Dillon Thomas.
After the months of closure, RMNP became the first national park to open with a timed entry system. Visitors had to have a reserved entry window, and pay a processing fee, in order to access the park. With the system a significant amount of people who wanted to visit the park were turned away. Even with that system operating for months RMNP still finished 2020 as the fourth most visited national park in the United States.
Patterson suggested the park may have had a record breaking year with visitors if it weren't for the closure, the timed entries and the historic Cameron Peak Fire. That hunch may be backed up with the statistics they saw during the winter months at year's end in 2020.
"We saw a 28% increase from November of 2019. And in December we saw a 38% increase from December of 2019," Patterson said.
Local businesses in Downtown Estes Park intent ally opened shop in that area to attract sales from tourists. However, with months of RMNP closure and more, many businesses took a direct hit.
"It did hit us early on, we were closed for about six weeks," said Ben Ferguson, owner of "Hyk."
Hyk is an outdoor apparel and supplies store in Estes Park. Ferguson was forced to take a part time job, as did his wife, while the shop was closed. However, after both the park and Hyk reopened, he quickly saw a return to sales.
"The desire to travel doesn't go away. It just gets delayed," Ferguson said. "No matter what happens to people they look for a way to get up in to the park."
Ferguson saw sales at the store drop by only a few percentage points in June, with sales growing to 100% year-to-year in July. Tourists from Colorado and beyond were flocking to Estes Park and RMNP as a way to vacation in a safe way.
Ferguson said, while transaction frequencies declined, the amount spent increased. He also applauded some visitors for being generous, saying many were donating to a non-profit he supports through his company.
"I think a great number of people hadn't been in the outdoors before, but the pandemic created a situation where they could become outdoorsy," Ferguson said.
RMNP has also seen the same increase in interest in 2021. The park's reserved camping website crashed twice as many rushed to book a vacation months from now.
"People come to public lands and national parks to find that peace. Last year was just another example of that," Patterson said.
