{"id":56685,"date":"2013-10-16T21:28:31","date_gmt":"2013-10-17T03:28:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/why-is-mesa-verde-still-closed\/"},"modified":"2013-10-17T03:28:31","modified_gmt":"2013-10-17T03:28:31","slug":"why-is-mesa-verde-still-closed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/why-is-mesa-verde-still-closed\/","title":{"rendered":"Why is Mesa Verde still closed?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Mesa
Mesa Verde National Park remains off-limits to visitors because of the federal shutdown. Though the state is paying to keep Rocky Mountain National Park open, it has no plans to reopen Mesa Verde and other parks.<\/span>Sam Green\/Cortez Journal<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

DENVER \u2013 Cash registers are ringing again at Grand Canyon National Park.<\/p>\n

The sound of bugling elk is competing against the clicking of tourists\u2019 camera shutters at Rocky Mountain National Park.<\/p>\n

And despite a federal government shutdown, Utah\u2019s national parks have all reopened, from Arches to Zion.<\/p>\n

But the ruins at Mesa Verde National Park are as quiet as the day before the Wetherills found them 125 years ago.<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s how it\u2019s going to stay, until Congress ends the partial shutdown of government.<\/p>\n

Governors won the right to reopen national parks in their states last week, if they paid for them. Colorado responded by reopening Rocky Mountain National Park, whose gateway community, Estes Park, is struggling to recover from flooding in September.<\/p>\n

But the state has no plans to reopen Mesa Verde, Great Sand Dunes or Black Canyon of the Gunnison national parks, said Gov. John Hickenlooper\u2019s spokesman, Eric Brown.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are certainly sympathetic to every community impacted by the federal government shutdown. Rocky Mountain National Park and Estes Park are in a unique situation given the historic flooding last month and limited access to the area,\u201d Brown said in an email.<\/p>\n

Colorado is paying $40,300 a day to operate Rocky Mountain National Park, using funds from the Colorado Tourism Office. The state will ask the federal government to pay it back once the crisis in Congress passes.<\/p>\n

Brown said the governor\u2019s office has not received requests from Southwest Colorado officials to reopen Mesa Verde.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s has changed.<\/p>\n

State Rep. Don Coram, R-Montrose, sent a letter to Hickenlooper Wednesday, Oct. 15, asking him to reopen all of Colorado\u2019s national parks.<\/p>\n

State Sen. Ellen Roberts, R-Durango, and state Rep. Mike McLachlan, D-Durango, said they would sign the letter.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe economic implications of closing Mesa Verde on Cortez, Mancos and Durango are probably similar to closing Rocky Mountain on Estes,\u201d Roberts said.<\/p>\n

Coram said he is sympathetic to Estes Park, but it isn\u2019t the only town in Colorado with troubles.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur communities are affected just as much as them,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Coram\u2019s district includes Rocky Mountain and Black Canyon of the Gunnison national parks. Just last week, a bus carrying 60 tourists from Japan was turned away from Black Canyon, he said.<\/p>\n

The park has minimal facilities, and the canyon can be seen from roadside turnouts.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s absolutely no reason at all in this being closed,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

McLachlan thinks the real issue is that congressional Republicans never should have shut down the government at all. But he said he would sign Coram\u2019s letter to Hickenlooper.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m hoping by the time he gets a chance to read that letter, it will be open anyway,\u201d McLachlan said.<\/p>\n

Hickenlooper\u2019s team is hoping the same thing.<\/p>\n

\u201cLike everyone, we want the federal government shutdown to end as quickly as possible,\u201d Brown said.<\/p>\n

jhanel@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Legislators to petition for state’s other parks<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":56686,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[188,13,481,173,4680,528],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-56685","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-dolores-star","tag-frontpage-lead","tag-gov-john-hickenlooper","tag-mesa-verde-national-park","tag-mike-mclachlan","tag-state-sen-ellen-roberts"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56685","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=56685"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56685\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/56686"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=56685"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=56685"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=56685"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=56685"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}