Glenwood Springs, Colorado
As of 10 a.m. Monday, anyone can reserve a spot on a shuttle to Hanging Lake or purchase a reservation to bike to the immensely popular trail in Glenwood Canyon.
Both reservation types cost $12 during peak season, but during April, the price for a bike reservation is $9.50.
The new reservation system through Visit Glenwood will be a drastic change from the unregulated, first-come-first-serve system.
The Forest Service launched efforts to curb the potentially devastating effects of Hanging Lake’s massive popularity after 2017, when 184,000 people visited the lake in a single year, with as many as 1,200 people on the trail per day during the peak summer months.
Under the new plan, the only way to access Hanging Lake between May and October will be from a shuttle, departing from Glenwood Springs, or from the bike path through Glenwood Canyon.
Starting May 1, visitors will be capped at 615 per day year round, and during peak summer months, hikers will be staggered to avoid congestion on the trail. Offseason reservations, between November and April, will cost $10 per person, and parking at the trailhead will reopen.
The city of Glenwood Springs awarded the contract to H2O Ventures — a partnership between Glenwood Adventure Co., Adventure Office and Peak 1 Express — in February, and since then the city, the U.S. Forest Service, the Glenwood Chamber and Resort Association and other stakeholders have been meeting regularly, sometimes several times a week, to ready the new system.
