{"id":71421,"date":"2016-12-08T22:14:19","date_gmt":"2016-12-09T05:14:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/mesa-verde-national-park-visitation-hits-17-year-high\/"},"modified":"2016-12-09T05:14:19","modified_gmt":"2016-12-09T05:14:19","slug":"mesa-verde-national-park-visitation-hits-17-year-high","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/mesa-verde-national-park-visitation-hits-17-year-high\/","title":{"rendered":"Mesa Verde National Park visitation hits 17-year high"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><figure class=\"wp-block-image naviga-inline-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/imengine.public.prod.dur.navigacloud.com\/?uuid=8f150f01-b10c-4c8b-a01c-d8f8d58fcb9a&amp;function=cover&amp;type=preview&amp;source=false&amp;width=2000\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1365\" alt=\"Mesa Verde National Park had a strong year for visitation after a national marketing campaign celebrating the centennial of the National Park System.\" class=\"naviga-image\" loading=\"lazy\"><figcaption><span class=\"caption\">Mesa Verde National Park had a strong year for visitation after a national marketing campaign celebrating the centennial of the National Park System.<\/span><span class=\"credit\">Durango Herald file<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p><p>Mesa Verde National Park this year hit a 17-year high for visitation.<\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nps.gov\/meve\/index.htm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">park<\/a> had about 593,000 visitors through November and could see 600,000 this year, said Cristy Brown, a park spokeswoman.<\/p>\n<p>Promotion around the National Park Service\u2019s centennial anniversary, low gas prices, bicycle tours and cool weather likely helped bring people to the park, Brown said. The park also benefited from <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nationalparks.org\/our-work\/campaigns-initiatives\/every-kid-park\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Every Kid in a Park Program<\/a>, which offers free park passes to fourth-graders and their families through the 2016-17 school year.<\/p>\n<p>During the summer, the park saw the bulk of its visitors, with 448,121 people visiting from May through September.<\/p>\n<p>The park achieved the increase even though Spruce Tree House, one of the park\u2019s most popular attractions, is closed indefinitely because the natural sandstone arch above the site is eroding.<\/p>\n<p>The Park Service has asked geotechnical engineering companies for bids to work on the site, but a contractor has not been selected, Brown said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s a very specialized project,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p>An increase in visitations likely helped economies in Cortez, Mancos and Durango this summer.<\/p>\n<p>In 2015, the 547,325 Mesa Verde visitors spent an estimated $55.4 million in nearby towns, and they supported 814 jobs, according to National Park Service <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nps.gov\/subjects\/socialscience\/vse.htm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">data.<\/a> Economic data for 2016 was not available.<\/p>\n<p>Through the 1990s, the park regularly had more than 600,000 visitors, according to park <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nps.gov\/meve\/learn\/management\/statistics.htm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">data.<\/a> But the park saw much lower visitation after several wildfires in the early 2000s.<\/p>\n<p>Brown expects the uptick in visitation to continue next year after the national campaign around the national park system\u2019s centennial.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe public is more aware of the parks and their resources now,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p>She also expects the Every Kid in a Park Program to continue through the 2017-18 school year.<\/p>\n<p>During the winter months, the park offers cross country skiing and snowshoeing, but so far the park has not received enough snow for those activities.<\/p>\n<p><em class=\"mwc_shirttail\"><a href=\"mailto:mshinn@durangoherald.com\">mshinn@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>see 600,000 visitors this year<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":71422,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[21,13,173,1187],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-71421","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-cortez","tag-frontpage-lead","tag-mesa-verde-national-park","tag-tourism"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71421","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=71421"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71421\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/71422"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71421"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71421"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71421"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=71421"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}