Reservations Please!

The City of Golden, Colorado recently announced that they are considering requiring reservations for tubing down Clear Creek, which runs through the middle of town and attracts huge crowds in the summer. During the pandemic, many people turned to the outdoors for recreation, and the number of tubers on that creek increased exponentially. And after the pandemic, they kept coming. In 2022 over 2,000 people crowded onto Clear Creek one weekend. Will the city actually implement that plan? And if you have a reservation, will it be for a certain time, and once your float down the river is finished, are you done for the day? The tubers would not like that one bit. In any case, I took the photograph on the left of Clear Creek yesterday afternoon while standing on the footbridge near Golden History Park. The paths along both sides of the creek were packed with people enjoying sunny skies and temperatures in the mid-60s, but there was not a tuber in sight. At this time of year, I imagine a stream with water coming down from the mountains might be a tad chilly. But on the plus side, no reservations needed!

A similar problem happened during the pandemic at Rocky Mountain National Park, where the crowds increased to the point where reservations were instituted during the summer months, and have been in effect ever since. If you want to enter the park and drive the Bear Lake Corridor (popular for a very scenic and easy walk around that lake) reservations during the summer are required until 6:00 P.M. For the rest of the park, reservations are needed until 2:00. I myself wouldn't think of hiking before 2:00, despite warnings about being off the mountain peaks by noon to avoid lightning strikes. If you start after 2:00, you finish right around happy hour, and can head directly to the Estes Park Brewery for a pleasant after hike beer. If you finish at noon, you have the entire rest of the day to fill and are probably too tired to do anything else except go home and take a nap. Boring! The photograph on the right, by the way, is of my sister Susan and late brother-in-law George taken one long ago summer afternoon hiking the Glacier Gorge Trail, one of our favorites, and located in that Bear Lake Corridor. Definitely worth it, even if you do have to make a reservation.