GRAND COUNTY — Lines of impatient tourists waited in their cars, spilling out onto the highway. They hoped to spend a long weekend in Arches National Park, but were faced with gridlock outside the entrance booths. The problem's been brewing for years, but overcrowding at Arches this past Memorial Day was so severe that the Highway Patrol was forced to close the park's entrance.

The National Park Service says it didn't expect what it calls "a perfect storm," but it has been working on the problem for years, studying overcrowding at Arches since 2006. Kate Cannon, the superintendent for Arches and three other Utah parks, says providing positive experiences for visitors is a big part of her responsibilities.

"The worst case scenario is for people to have their expectations dashed," she said. "They envision coming to a park, having a lovely, easy day, where they can explore the place at will. And instead, they get here and there are lines everywhere. That's not what they had in mind when they planned their trip."

Pleasing visitors is part of the job, and it's one Cannon wanted from a very early age.

"I got started in this line of work as I think many of us have — with the family trip in the station wagon out West," Cannon said. "I saw what was here, and I saw that there were people who work here, and decided that's what I want to do."

Cannon arrived eight years ago, after working at national parks across the country — most recently at the Grand Canyon. For those eight years, she's witnessed nonstop, unprecedented visitor growth. She says there may come a time when Arches is one of the most popular parks in the country.

"It is hard to picture, but I think the potential is there," said Cannon.

Attendance at Arches has skyrocketed, with much of the growth happening in just the past two or three years. In 2000, about 786,000 people came into the park. In 2010, the park's numbers crossed a million for the first time. This year, Cannon expects Arches to hit 1.5 million.

The balancing act

Cannon says keeping visitors happy and safe is a constant process, which includes monitoring where people tend to stop and gather.

"Some of them are pretty obvious," Cannon said, speaking of the park's popular spots. "They're built into the road, and we put them there because we expect people to stop there. But there are also places that people — for whatever reason — there's a particular view that strikes them, and they pull off there. And over time, then, we will watch where that happens, and we will consider putting a pullout there. We want them to be safely off the roadway when they do that."

But accommodating visitors is only half of the job. Cannon says it's a balancing act: weighing the needs and safety of visitors against those of the landscape.

"We want to, on the one hand, try to make sure they have a great experience in the park," said Cannon. "And on the other hand, we want to make sure that we keep the scenery and the resources intact that they come to see."

Cannon says protecting the environment is extremely important to the Park Service; she wants visitors to enjoy the park, but doesn't want them driving off roads, or leaving designated areas and damaging plant life or other organisms. Part of protecting the area is the construction of trails.

"People can walk on a hardened trail that gets them to where they want to be, without causing erosion and gullying and vegetation damage," Cannon said. "We also protect the resource by giving people information. Talking to them about what damage they can do, and how to avoid doing damage as they're out hiking or exploring the park."

The Park Service has faced its share of lawsuits over the years. Following a suit contending that they'd failed to adequately protect the Merced River, Yosemite National Park in California — one of the busiest in the country — instituted a number of changes, including putting a hard cap on the number of visitors allowed in Yosemite Valley at once.

Arches National Park has searched for solutions to overcrowding for years. Although the park's entrance experienced massive gridlock on Memorial Day, Cannon says the entrance is merely a "choke point," and she's not just concerned with getting people into the park, but what to do with them once they're inside.

Cannon says the first suggestion many people have is for the park to provide a shuttle system, similar to the one at Zion National Park. Zion Canyon is closed to nearly all personal vehicles through much of the year, requiring most visitors to take the shuttle. It solved the majority of their issues with packed parking lots and resource damage caused by cars parking in unapproved locations.

A voluntary shuttle is something Arches has studied in the past. Cannon says they concluded it simply wasn't feasible, due to the differences between Arches and Zion.

"The distance is everything — that equates to money," she said. "They have a much shorter distance. They have about six miles total. We have 54."

That's 54 miles from one end of the park to the other and back, including trips along side roads.

"A shuttle system has to be convenient if people are going to use it or like it," Cannon said. "We couldn't afford the numbers of buses and drivers that it would take to carry enough people to reduce the parking congestion. The one we could afford would not have even kept up with 2 percent annual growth — which is, of course, way lower than what we have."

Cannon believes there isn't one single solution; they're presenting several to the people, asking for input. She says many of these options were built on suggestions they've already received.

"We went out and asked them what they thought of different ways to try to solve the problem," Cannon said. "Rather than try to invent it all ourselves, we thought that the various perpectives you get when you ask the public to weigh in would be very helpful, and that proved to be true."

The Park Service recently published a newsletter listing a number of preliminary alternatives to dealing with congestion. It has narrowed the number of options, following a larger list presented to the public earlier this year. One of the current options is an off-peak rate.

"If you come in less busy times, you would pay a lower entrance fee," said Cannon.

Another is offering what Cannon calls a "timed entry system," allowing visitors to reserve a ticket in advance.

"Easily go through the gate, go where you want to go, and parking wherever you choose," Cannon said. "Spread use evenly across the full day, which would enable us to accommodate more visitors, without having them experience what they experience now, which is coming in and driving around to simply search for parking spaces."

The mood in Moab

The town of Moab, just five miles from the entrance to Arches, is filled with hotels, restaurants and other businesses dedicated to tourism. Mike Bynum went to high school here, and now owns and operates a number of tourism-related businesses. The walls of his office are covered with zoning maps and designs for future developments, capitalizing on the dramatic increases in visitation.

He says he's seen a lot of changes around town, especially in the last few years.

"Moab has certainly become much more well-known," Bynum said. "Not only nationally, but certainly internationally. There are times in some of our places of business that you'll walk through the restaurant, and you don't always hear much English being spoken."

Keeping guests happy is something Bynum puts a lot of thought into.

"Educating the visitors," he said, speaking of trying to push tourists to visit the park in the less crowded times of day. "Certainly if you're going to Arches, going early in the morning or more towards the evening is really the prettiest time to see it, anyway."

Bynum says most of the town's residents agree something has to be done to address overcrowding, but opinions run the spectrum from those who want to preserve the environment at all costs to those who want to do anything to accommodate visitors.

"I certainly can't speak on behalf of the town," he said. "I think everyone would like to see something rational and reasonable done."

Bynum believes the "timed entry system," offering reservations to visitors, is something that's rubbed some of Moab's residents the wrong way — they believe some tourists would be unaware of its existence, and would be forced to wait in line while others went in. Bynum's not sure it's the best solution.

"Certainly if that develops into the only reasonable alternative, then so be it," he said. "But to kind of go from zero to a hundred … I would like to see some more measured steps taken."

Steps underway

The Park Service is already taking steps, identifying what it's calling "hot spots" — popular areas suffering the most from overcrowding, causing visitors to circle endlessly, searching for parking. Areas like the Windows Section and Devils Garden made that list.

But one of the biggest problem areas in the park is at Wolfe Ranch, the trailhead to the iconic Delicate Arch. The small parking lot is often over capacity, resulting in many visitors parking along the road.

After two long years of planning and government-mandated studies, there's progress. Parking at the Delicate Arch trailhead is being doubled, from 73 spaces to 148. This construction is something the park's maintenance director takes a lot of pride in.

"Sometimes when you're building a project in the federal government, there's just so many pieces that have to come together," said John Lewis, chief of maintenance for Arches and Canyonlands. "Finally when they come together, it's a good feeling."

Lewis says the parking expansion was sorely needed, not just for convenience, but for safety. Cars parking along the road results in people darting in and out of traffic. The Park Service plans to put large boulders along the road, hoping to curb that problem, which would also help prevent cars from leaving the pavement and damaging the environment. Overflow parking for the trailhead will be available at the Delicate Arch Viewpoint, about a mile away.

It's just one of several projects taking place. An additional 44 parking spaces was added to Devils Garden last year, and planning is underway for improvements to the Windows Section. In 2017, Lewis hopes to begin what's called the "3R Project," which would lay a new base under the roads and resurface them. It would also add an additional lane on the road leading to the entrance booths, helping address the issue of cars backing up on to the highway.

But the issues at Wolfe Ranch were ones Lewis says were some of the most glaring. He says two years is a long time to work on a project as simple as expanding a parking lot, but believes it simply comes with the job.

"First, you've got to start off with the topography, and see if that will lend itself to a parking lot," he said. "From the engineering side, we'll propose an area, and say, 'We think this is suitable to pave over.' But then, it goes through the compliance process. People comment on it, and it's not just us saying, 'Hey, let's build a parking lot here.' The public's involved, our staff are involved — everything from cultural resources to the vegetation people — they have to comment too. And that's why the process takes a little bit longer."

The big expansion at Wolfe Ranch is progress, but it's only a drop in the bucket. Cannon says they'd have to add 150 parking spaces every year to keep up with the park's growth, and she believes a sea of pavement isn't what people come to see.

Cannon says her job is a balancing act, but also believes both sides of the job have the same goal — that protecting the environment and landscapes of Arches National Park is part of what makes visitors happy.

"You know what I'd like to see?" Cannon asked. "I'd like to see every day, in the park, lots of people who are out enjoying the place, and able to enjoy it unimpeded by parking problems. It's spectacular, and they shouldn't miss it."

Arches isn't the only park seeing increased visitation. Nearby Canyonlands is as well, and is included in recent studies and the public comment period, which is open until Nov. 12.

Click here to submit opinions to the National Park Service.

You can view the official newsletter, detailing potential solutions and maps of "Hot Spots" here:

Oct 2015 Preliminary Alternatives Newsletter Traffic Congestion Management

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