RIFLE — Colorado Parks and Wildlife offers a wide variety of passes for entry into state parks.
At the beginning of 2019 it began offering an Annual Hang Tag pass for $120. The new pass is associated with an individual purchaser instead of a vehicle, which means the pass can be moved between vehicles as long as the pass holder is present.
After hearing feedback from customers CPW decided to try and work out issues to make the pass easier for multiple people to use.
During a discussion Thursday at the CPW Commission meeting at CMC Rifle’s campus, Margaret Taylor, assistant director for capital, parks and trails for CPW, talked about the limitation of the pass.
At the commission’s meeting in July at Telluride a couple of regulations were brought forward that raised a lot questions.
“There were some statutory limitations to the pass, meaning that a person was able to buy a transferable annual pass or a hanging tag pass, but technically by state statute they were not allowed to transfer it to another person,” Taylor said.
During Thursday’s analysis session with the commission Taylor said the issue was brought back to legislation to be fixed, so now statutorily owners are able to transfer the pass more freely.
With the issue not up for a vote and after more than an hour of presentation and discussion on the analysis the commission decided to set a subcommittee to meet between now and the next meeting in November, when it will be brought back to be voted on.
Brian Palcer, park manager for Rifle Gap, Rifle Falls and Harvey Gap state parks, said they usually see the traditional annual pass and mostly daily passes in the parks in Western Garfield County.
“There are quite a few people that come out for the day. They will spend the $8 for the day pass,” Palcer said.
“I think there’s application for it (transferable hang tag park pass) for any park through out the state. It is kind of how your home is set up. If you have multiple cars and multiple people that’s a challenge too.”
Palcer said if you have multiple vehicles that you want to take in the park the transferable pass might not be as good, and people might want to go the traditional annual pass and multiple vehicle passes.
“It’s really your home dynamic and number of cars that kind of dictate that, and less so the park location,” Palcer said.
“What I usually tell people is the daily pass is $8 and the annual is $80; if you come more than 10 times in a year you should probably look into getting an annual pass.”
Taylor said a big chunk of the revenue CPW receives from the public comes directly from the parking passes and camping permits.
During the two-day meeting in Rifle the Colorado Parks and Wildlife Commission also discussed the annual reviews of parks and outdoor recreation lands, passes, permits and registrations regulations, Department of Natural Resources update, financial update and a GOCO update.
The commission meets regularly and travels to communities around the state to facilitate public participation. Anyone can listen to commission meetings through the CPW website. This opportunity keeps constituents informed about the development of regulations and how the commission works with Colorado Parks and Wildlife staff to manage the parks, wildlife and outdoor recreation programs administered by the agency. Find out more about the commission on the CPW website.
The next commission meeting will take place Nov. 14 to 15 in Wray.