{"id":1317265,"date":"2019-12-15T15:30:00","date_gmt":"2019-12-15T22:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.postindependent.com\/?p=991784"},"modified":"2019-12-15T15:30:00","modified_gmt":"2019-12-15T22:30:00","slug":"glenwood-springs-hopes-more-hanging-lake-hikers-will-hang-out-downtown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/local-news\/glenwood-springs-hopes-more-hanging-lake-hikers-will-hang-out-downtown\/","title":{"rendered":"Glenwood Springs hopes more Hanging Lake hikers will hang out downtown"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
Snow blankets Hanging Lake on Saturday. Roughly two-thirds of summertime visitors to Hanging Lake spent time in downtown Glenwood Springs, but local officials would like to see that increase. PETER BAUMANN \/ POST INDEPENDENT<\/strong>
hang-GPI-121619<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

Between May 1 and Oct. 31 of this year, over 75,000 people hiked to Hanging Lake.<\/p>\n

The city of Glenwood Springs would like those same hikers to visit the historic downtown area before or after their visit to the natural national landmark in Glenwood Canyon, too.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a fine line there,\u201d Ken Murphy, H20 Ventures co-owner, said at a recent city council meeting. \u201cOf providing the service and not also pushing and taking an agenda.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the fall of 2018, the U.S. Forest Service and city of Glenwood Springs partnered to implement a reservation and shuttle service for Hanging Lake, largely, to curb overcrowding.<\/p>\n

2019 was the inaugural year for the shuttle service, which H20 Ventures \u2013 a partnership between Glenwood Adventure Co., Adventure Office and Peak 1 Express \u2013 provided.<\/p>\n

During peak season (May 1 \u2013 Oct. 31), the Hanging Lake shuttle largely bypassed Glenwood Springs\u2019 downtown.<\/p>\n

According to Murphy, the shuttle departed from the Hanging Lake Welcome Center (110 Wulfsohn Road) in the Meadows and traveled along Midland Avenue before getting on I-70 at exit 114 in West Glenwood.<\/p>\n

From West Glenwood, the Hanging Lake Shuttle remained on I-70 eastbound until the Hanging Lake exit.<\/p>\n

Given its practicality, that route likely will not change for the 2020 season.<\/p>\n

However, next year the city may look to incorporate signage at the Hanging Lake Welcome Center that points people in the direction of the historic downtown area.<\/p>\n

According to Murphy, hikers often exited the shuttle at the welcome center following their trip to Hanging Lake hungry and thirsty.<\/p>\n

Currently, little to no signage at or around the Hanging Lake Welcome Center directs visitors to the myriad of eating and drinking establishments and other businesses in the downtown area, just a short distance away.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis would be vehicular signage that would be in the same format of what\u2019s already on Grand Avenue,\u201d Laura Kirk, Downtown Development Authority executive director, said. \u201cThat points people to lodging, shopping and other things like that.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to a presentation delivered by Murphy to city council, during the peak season nearly 50,000 hikers (66.3%) said they visited downtown Glenwood Springs either before or after their hike to Hanging Lake.<\/p>\n

A little over 25,000 (33.7%) hikers reported they did not go to the downtown area.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe as a community, we can do a better job with our wayfinding,\u201d Murphy said. \u201cIf that\u2019s the biggest issue we have coming out of this, you know, I think everybody should be happy where we are right now.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s a simple fix,\u201d Murphy said to councilors.<\/p>\n

When asked Friday if the city had any plans to extend the Hanging Lake shuttle service to a year-round format, city manager Debra Figueroa said no.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile the city is very pleased that the first year of the Hanging Lake shuttle service was successful, there are no plans to run the system through the entire year,\u201d Figueroa said. \u201cThe contract we have with the Forest Service is just from May 1 to Oct. 31.\u201d<\/p>\n

mabennett@postindependent.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

via:: Post Independent<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Snow blankets Hanging Lake on Saturday. Roughly two-thirds of summertime visitors to Hanging Lake spent time in downtown Glenwood Springs, but local officials would like to see that increase. PETER BAUMANN \/ POST INDEPENDENThang-GPI-121619 Between May 1 and Oct. 31 of this year, over 75,000 people hiked to Hanging Lake. The city of Glenwood Springs […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[160],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1317265","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-21 06:17:52","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSKE Ski Country","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1317265","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1317265"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1317265\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1317265"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1317265"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1317265"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}