Increases along 'road less traveled,' but mostly visitation drops at national parks in Colorado

Visitation in 2022 dropped after a year of high traffic at Colorado's four national parks, in line with what land managers say represents a return to pre-pandemic levels.

Among visitation at all national parks — monuments and recreation areas are other examples of designations under the National Park Service — Rocky Mountain National Park maintained a high ranking, fourth, according to the latest set of data. The park tallied 4.3 million visits last year, a 3% drop from 2021 and down from a record 4.6 million in 2019. (Parks were closed and limited upon the COVID-19 outbreak in 2020.)

Colorado's next-most visited national park, Mesa Verde, reported 499,790 visits in 2022, compared with 548,477 in 2021 — a nearly 9% drop. With 297,257 visits, Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park saw a nearly 4% dip year-to-year.

And after a record 602,000-plus visits in 2021, Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve settled back to numbers more familiar to the years after the National Park Service's heavily promoted centennial celebration in 2016. The Sand Dunes counted 493,428 visits in 2022, an 18% change from the historic busy year.

Colorado's other national parks set visitation records in 2017 (Mesa Verde) and 2019 (Rocky Mountain and Black Canyon of the Gunnison).

From a listed 387 destinations, the National Park Service logged 312 million "recreation visits" in 2022, which was up 5% from 2021. That was down from 318 million reported in 2018 and 327 million in 2019.

Rather than at the country's busiest, most celebrated natural jewels, an uptick last year was seen along "what we could call the road less traveled," the service's director, Chuck Sams, said in a news release.

That includes Bent's Old Fort National Historic Site in southeast Colorado. The site representing the old trading post on the Santa Fe Trail tallied 26,057 visits last year, up a whopping 20% from the year prior.

Another National Park Service installation that bucked the trend was Hovenweep National Monument, straddling Colorado's southwest corner. With 28,446 visits in 2022, the preserve of prehistoric villages saw a year-to-year increase of 6%.

"The subtle shift in park visitation is good for visitors, good for protecting parks, and good for local communities whose economies benefit from tourism dollars," Sams said.

Still, Bent's Old Fort and Hovenweep were exceptions to the trend in the state, where Colorado (480,422 visits in 2022), Dinosaur (351,019) and Florissant Fossil Beds (67,174) national monuments also reported dropped visitation from 2021.

The trend follows Colorado's state parks in 2022. The 42 parks collectively recorded 18.2 million visits last year, down from records in 2020 (19.5 million) and 2021 (19.9 million).

Among all national parks in 2022, Great Smoky Mountains National Park was most-visited with 12.9 million counted through the gates. Grand Canyon and Zion national parks ranked second and third, with similar visitation around 4.7 million. Acadia National Park (3.9 million) rounded out the top five, behind Rocky Mountain National Park (4.3 million).