ESTES PARK — Rocky Mountain National Park appears to have found the formula for handling 4 million-plus people a year in this idyllic retreat.
You might need to give the town another year of grace to handle their end.
Downtown Estes Park is often at a traffic standstill in summer as park-seeking RVs rev their engines at caramel corn-seeking pedestrians. Now downtown is deep into the crucial year of a project that will create a one-way loop around town and out toward the park. Most town leaders and business owners welcome the change, but before it’s done, there’s still a lot of disruption ahead.
Meanwhile, the major overhaul of Rocky Mountain National Park’s largest campground, Moraine Park, does not yet have an end date, as massive drain pipes sit stacked near unpaved driving loops. And what’s up with Larimer County elk, which usually wander the park and the town peacefully but have unleashed two disturbing attacks on children in recent weeks?
Here are some things to know, based on interviews and updates with a few Estes Park players:
Downtown driving will be better … in the future
Most of those 4 million visitors to Rocky Mountain National Park must get through Estes Park’s busy four-block downtown in order to head out onto U.S. 36 to the main Beaver Meadows park entrance. Long plagued by a traffic crawl and a deficit of shopper parking, Estes Park took advantage of federal and state highway funds, added its own contribution and settled on a one-way loop concept. Traffic will head south and west toward the park, with a roundabout at the old potato-sack amusement slide sending traffic back across the Big Thompson River and behind downtown to get back to the highway.
After years, if not decades, of arguing how to solve traffic problems, and considering options such as another downtown bypass and turning the shopping blocks into a pedestrian mall, “this is what we’ve got,” Mayor Gary Hall said.
It’s the second summer of major construction on the loop, and Hall believes police and community service officers now have a good sense of how to keep traffic and people flowing, overriding stoplights when needed.
“So you can still have a wonderful experience in town. But you probably ought to allow for a few extra minutes to get to the destinations,” Hall said.
If RMNP is your destination, know this
The timed-entry reservation system during busy summer daytime hours at Rocky Mountain National Park is now a permanent fixture of park life, after a couple of summers of pilots worked out the kinks. So you need an online reservation at the main entrance, and a separate one for the uber-popular Bear Lake corridor.
After topping out at 4.3 million visitors a couple of years ago, timed entry and post-pandemic patterns have settled out at about 4.1 million for the park, which now appears more manageable in the relatively small, scenery-packed space.
There is still no opening date set yet, though, on the overhaul and relaunch of Moraine Park Campground and its hundreds of RV and tent spaces. A revamped and faster entrance station at Fall River is also taking longer than expected, so no relief yet there.
Frequent visitors are still figuring out whether a highly touted “transponder” system is good for them. For $15, annual and other passholders can buy the credit card-sized device for their windshield, which opens a gate in a dedicated lane. However, the transponder lane is closed during the 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. timed entry window. And it costs $5 each year to renew.
Add elk to your list of bear do’s and don’ts
Elk and moose in Colorado’s wildland-urban interfaces seem gawky and gangly and cute and harmless, until they’re not. Two recent incidents in Estes Park, where the elk roam through town yards and playgrounds all summer, have prompted new wildlife warnings.
In one incident, a 4-year-old boy was stomped repeatedly by an elk at the Stanley Park playground on an early afternoon this week. The boy was taken to the hospital, treated and released. Two elk calves were hidden behind rocks nearby, which makes wildlife officers think the mama elk reacted to a perceived threat.
A week earlier, an 8-year-old girl on a bike was also charged from 60 yards away and stomped by a cow elk. The child was treated at a hospital and released later that day.
Wildlife officers “hazed” the elk with bean bag guns and chased them from the area, and are closing trail sections or putting up aggressive animal warnings when needed.
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As for those mama bears and their precious, hungry cubs, the Park Service has been busy as well. There are now about 350 bear-proof food storage lockers at Rocky Mountain National Park campsites, and the cost is one of the reasons cited for a proposed $10 a night boost to camping fees next year.