Dear Supporter of Public Lands,
A bit of news to report below. First, I hope this finds you well on Memorial Day. And I hope you’ll join me in thanking all those who’ve died for our country in uniform, defending our rights and freedoms as Americans. We’ll never forget them. We owe it to them to speak out and stand up whenever those rights are in danger.
Later today we’ll exercise our First Amendment right up at the Beaver Meadows Visitor Center in Rocky Mountain National Park. For the visitors who’ve been turned away from the Park because they don’t have a reservation, we’ll give them a chance to sign the petition and explain what’s going on. In the meantime, someone suggested a compromise with the Superintendent that makes a lot of sense to me.
If I see Superintendent Sidles today, I’ll put the proposal to her and see what she says. It’s also important to remember that just because you think something is a bad policy, the people behind that policy aren’t bad people. Our message isn’t anti-National Park. It’s just anti unfair and permanent restrictions on public lands.
In that spirit, I’d like to encourage you to do three things this summer when you’re visiting Rocky. Visiting the Park is a magical experience every time. If you’re local, on a day like today (even if it’s unseasonably cool and rainy), remind yourself how lucky you are to be so close to something so beautiful. It may even be the reason you live here!
But regardless of where you are from, here are three things you can do to improve everyone’s visitor experience in the Park:
- Keep it pristine. If you see trash on the trail, pick it up. I always take a plastic grocery bag with me. Mostly its plastic wrappers from granola bars and snack foods. Sometimes its masks. Or, disgustingly, it might be a used tissue (bring gloves just in case). Things fall out of pockets. And some people are just careless. Do your part to keep the Park pristine.
- Be considerate to Park Rangers, employees and volunteers. Rangers, volunteers, and full-time Park employees have had a tough job and it’s been a tough twelve months. It’s not their fault the Superintendent has imposed restrictions. Thank them for their efforts, especially when many of them literally put their health and life on the line during last year’s pandemic and wildfires.
- Be considerate and respectful to one another. This can be hard in the busiest part of the summer. Everyone’s trying to get somewhere. There are a lot of people. And some of them behave like absolute morons. Take a deep breath and try to be patient. Some people have never seen an elk before. Heck, some people have never seen mountains before. For some people, it’s their first time in a place like this. For other people, it might be their only time. Or their last time. Try to assume the best of intentions and treat them the way you’d want to be treated.
Sorry for getting on my soap box there. But I thought it was important to say. Twenty-six years ago this month, we took my terminally ill mom into the Park for her last drive. She’d been coming to the Park since she was a teenager who came up from Dallas to spend her summers here. She wanted to see Upper Beaver Meadows one last time, and Deer Ridge Junction.
My point is, you never know why someone is visiting the Park or what’s going on in their life. Try to be kind. Everyone is there for a reason…to enjoy the physical, mental, and spiritual benefits of an incredible natural wonder.
Now, quickly, an idea for the Superintendent. Since the Park seems to be making up the rules as it goes along, why not cancel the reservation system at the end of July? Here’s a compromise idea that might help build public support for any kind of permanent change in access to public lands that comes later.
1. Eliminate the Timed Entry system for August and September. This means you’ll have two full months with reservations and two without. This is a perfect way to test what works and the public’s reaction. Gather data with and without restrictions and compare the results.
2. Offer every visitor the chance to fill out an on-line survey and ask about their visitor experience. Ask them if they approve or disapprove and why. Make the results public and share them with the public. Find out the actual impact of a reservation system on visitor experience.
3. Hold a third NEPA meeting in January, 2022. It’s not sensible to close public comment on restrictions on July 19th, as currently planned. Many people are still unaware of what is happening. Gather the data from this summer, analyze it, and present it to the public for a genuine, collaborative discussion about what to do.
Reasonable, common-sense solutions are out there. You can preserve and conserve the natural resources of Rocky Mountain National Park AND uphold that principle that public lands belong to the people. Let's do it.!
Until next time,
Dan
PS There’s one more thing you can do to support the Park and its mission of conservation and public betterment: donate to the Rocky Mountain Nature Conservancy. I did just this morning. My parents met as teenagers on the bridge across Black Canyon Creek, just below Macgregor Ranch on Devils Gulch Road. It’s a special spot in our family. I asked that my donation go trail maintenance.
Why?
I learned this morning that the previous social trail connecting the Black Canyon trail to the Macgregor Falls trail has been blocked off by the owners of Macgregor Ranch. The ranch is a charitable trust. But it’s still private property. And they have a right to block access, as far as I know.
From what I’ve learned, the Park’s response is to tell hikers to continue on the Black Canyon trail in the Park, and then, at some point, bushwhack back down the Macgregor Falls trail at the point where it’s in the Park boundaries. In other words, to create a social trail!
If you watched either of the Park’s webinars, you’ll know that social trailing was cited as one of the reasons permanent restrictions are needed. Yet here, in response to a problem, they may be encouraging it!
It’s clear that there are some tough problems to manage. So why not be willing to change and adapt on the fly? Why not run a real pilot where you rest restrictions vs no restrictions in the same year? And then, instead of having one set of information that’s for the public and one that’s for the ‘insiders’, present the same information to everyone?
Surely, you’d get more public support for whatever direction you wanted to take then. And if you’re making it up as you go along, it’s not too late to take public opinion into consideration and adopt a reasonable, sensible, common-sense compromise for everyone. Do it Darla!
PPS I almost forgot. The Park volunteers at the trail heads do a great job. In the last week I’ve tried to verify, by asking them each time I see them, if locals need a reservation to use areas like Lily Lake, Wild Basin, Longs Peak, and Lumpy Ridge. The answer is—it depends on who you ask.
Officially, the answer is yes. There are no free areas. And all those areas are part of the 9am to 3pm tier of the restriction system. It would be nice if that changed.
Multiple volunteers told me that something like an ‘honor system’ is in place at these locations. In other words, they’ll be treading lightly when enforcing reservation requirements. Again—that’s not official. It’s only what I’ve heard from volunteers, whose information may be incorrect (unless they were verbally instructed to enforce things this way).
It looks like good news for Golden Eagle Pass and Annual Pass holders. But if the volunteers have been instructed to admit locals on an ‘honor system,’ it’s extremely troubling. Fortunately for them, it saves them from having to police and bad and unpopular system. But how do you define local?
Is it someone who lives in Estes Park? The Estes Valley? The Front Range? The State of Colorado? Any state bordering Colorado? Any state on the watersheds of the Colorado or Arkansas rivers? Who decides?
The definition of an unfair system is one where your access and privileges are determined arbitrarily by someone who is making it up as they go along. If Rocky Mountain National Park is truly a National Park, then every single American is a local. Every single person should be treated the same and fairly, which means being able to enter the Park without a reservation.
It IS true that the annual passes do create ‘tiers.’ And it does seem unfair that if you buy an annual or lifetime pass, you still have to make a reservation. Why buy a pass at all if that’s the case?
In my view the best solution is to eliminate the system completely. Over 20 million people visited Rocky Mountain National Park between 2015 and 2019 without a reservation. The Park is 412 square miles, much of it pristine wilderness. It has 355 miles of hiking trails, 92 miles of paved roads, and 28 miles of dirt roads. Americans shouldn’t need a reservation to go outside, especially on lands that belong to the people.
PPPS I've updated the petition text to indicate that there is now a timed-entry system in Yosemite.