RMNP officials say weather, more than the price of gas, has been a major factor in the decline in visitors.

Mother nature, not high gas prices, blamed for dip in Park visits.

By John Cordsen of the Estes Park Trail Gazette

Wednesday, July 16, 2008

Park officials say weather, more so than the price of gas, has been a major factor in a decline in visitors coming to Rocky Mountain National Park over the past three months.

“Inclement weather during early June impacted visitation numbers,” said Park information officer Kyle Patterson. “Trail Ridge Road was temporarily closed numerous times in early June.”

It was the same story in May.

“Weather during May, in conjunction with an earlier Memorial Day weekend impacted visitation numbers,” said Patterson. “Trail Ridge Road officially opened for the season on May 23 but has been closed numerous times since then.”

Patterson said officials were unsure of how high gas prices were impacting visits because of a number of factors, one being the Park’s close proximity to the large Front Range population.

“We’re just not sure how they (gas prices) are impacting visits because Rocky is a backyard park to such a large population,” said Patterson.

She said one school of thought was that with increasing gas prices, people may be choosing to stay closer to home for their recreation opportunities, and Rocky Mountain National Park is virtually in the “backyard” to scores of people. Patterson also said the Park is seeing an increase in foreign visitors.

“We are seeing in increase in international travelers,” she said. “We are hearing a lot of different languages in the Park.”

Patterson said the Park is also seeing a change in how long visitors stay, a trend she says could be tied to gas prices.

Bighorn Sheep creating a traffic jam on the Keyhole Route on Longs Peak

“We are seeing extended stays in the Park’s campgrounds,” she said. “Where a couple of years ago campers would be staying two or three nights, now they are choosing to stay from three to five nights, making the decision not to drive to two or three other locations.”

Patterson pointed to an increase in visits to Yellowstone National Park as a measure of the public’s willingness to target parks in general as vacation destinations and how the cold of May and June have impacted visits to Rocky Mountain National Park.

According to the Billings (Mont.) Gazette, in June, Yellowstone hit a new record for visits and is on a near-record pace for the first six months of the year.

Yellowstone recorded 612,095 recreational visits in June. That’s up 2,489 visitors from June 2007, and marks only the second time in history that Yellowstone’s June visitation has topped the 600,000 mark. Last year’s park visitation set a new record of 3.15 million visitors. Before that, the highest visitation was in 1992 with 3.14 million visitors.

Bad weather in May was seen as a factor in a slower May in Yellowstone, much like it has been for Rocky Mountain National Park.

May visits in Rocky were off 11.9 percent in 2008 as compared to 2007. A total of 178,069 visitors were counted this May compared to 202,192 last year.

June visits were off 9.47 percent with 442,913 visitors being counted in 2008 as compared to 489,238 last year.

June was the third straight month the Park saw a decline in visitors. April’s visits were off 15.4 percent from the previous year. April 2008 saw 69,743 people enter the Park. This is off from the 82,439 who visited during the same time in 2007.

For the year, visits to Rocky Mountain National Park were down 7.25 percent from 2007. Through the first six months of this year, 916,070 visitors were counted. This is down from 987,693 last year.