{"id":1320404,"date":"2020-06-08T18:44:37","date_gmt":"2020-06-09T00:44:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.postindependent.com\/?p=997092"},"modified":"2020-06-09T06:21:02","modified_gmt":"2020-06-09T12:21:02","slug":"glenwoods-big-tourist-attractions-reopen-to-the-joy-of-visitors-and-locals-alike","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/local-news\/glenwoods-big-tourist-attractions-reopen-to-the-joy-of-visitors-and-locals-alike\/","title":{"rendered":"Glenwood\u2019s big tourist attractions reopen to the joy of visitors and locals alike"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure class=\"wp-block-image p402_hide\">\n<div class=\"caption-container\">\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"634\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.postindependent.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2020\/06\/AttractionsOpen-gpi-060920-1024x634.jpg\" class=\"attachment-large size-large wp-post-image\" alt srcset=\"https:\/\/cdn.postindependent.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2020\/06\/AttractionsOpen-gpi-060920-1024x634.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/cdn.postindependent.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2020\/06\/AttractionsOpen-gpi-060920-300x186.jpg 300w, https:\/\/cdn.postindependent.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2020\/06\/AttractionsOpen-gpi-060920-768x475.jpg 768w, https:\/\/cdn.postindependent.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2020\/06\/AttractionsOpen-gpi-060920-1536x951.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/cdn.postindependent.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2020\/06\/AttractionsOpen-gpi-060920-2048x1267.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\"><\/p><figcaption><strong>Vistors from out of town check in at the gondola base at Glenwood Caverns Adventure Park for their 2PM arrival time on Monday afternoon.<\/strong><br \/><em>Chelsea Self \/ Post Independent<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<p>Nicole Thome and Art Acevedo were in Glenwood Springs on some business Monday from Long Beach, California when they heard that the Glenwood Caverns Adventure Park had finally reopened.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019ve been doing a little bit of a road trip, and went to Zion and then just continued on,\u201d Thome said after purchasing a pass for her first-ever visit to the popular amusement park and natural caves high atop Iron Mountain.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI was hopeful they would be open. We checked online this morning and, sure enough,\u201d she said. \u201cWe\u2019ll probably look at the caverns and maybe check out a couple of the thrill rides.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Acevedo said he was looking forward to the view from the top, and was happy to be outdoors in the mountains doing something that\u2019s been forbidden for the past three months due to the coronavirus pandemic.<\/p>\n<div class=\"row\">\n<div class=\"col\" readability=\"6\">\n<div class=\"row gspi-donation gspi-donation-mobile p-0\" readability=\"7\">\n<div class=\"col-xl-4 p-2\">\n<div data-bg=\"url(https:\/\/cdn.postindependent.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2020\/03\/PI-logo-white.png)\" class=\"p-0 mt-2 mb-2 h-75 text-center rocket-lazyload\">\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.postindependent.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2020\/03\/PI-logo-white.png\" class=\"logo m-0 p-0 invisible\"><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><h3 class=\"d-inline mr-3\">Support Local Journalism<\/h3>\n<p><button class=\"btn d-inline\" type=\"button\" onclick=\"handleDonationButtonClickMidArticle()\">Donate<\/button><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>Glenwood Springs\u2019 large tourist attractions were given the go-ahead Friday by state and local public health officials to reopen at limited capacity and with social distancing protocols in place. Monday was the first day of business this spring for the Caverns, and marked the reopening of the Iron Mountain Hot Springs and Glenwood Hot Springs Resort, which had been closed since mid-March in the effort to slow the spread of COVID-19.<\/p>\n<p>All three attractions are currently limited to 50% of their normal capacity, which is accomplished by limiting visitors to certain times of day and, in cases, on a reservation basis.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSince turning on our webstores at 4 p.m. on Friday, we have been experiencing a strong volume of online purchases,\u201d said Heather Austin, marketing and sales manager for both the Caverns Adventure Park and Iron Mountain Hot Springs.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt was a nice soft opening with a fair amount of guests, allowing us to implement and get comfortable with our new post-COVID operations, including social distancing and face coverings,\u201d Austin said. \u201cWe are thrilled to be back open and welcoming our guests.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Bianca Porter heard on the Denver news Sunday night that Glenwood\u2019s major attractions were reopening, and decided to bring her daughter, Kendall, and her friend Emily Kennison for a visit.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI figured it would be a great thing for them to come up here and get out and have some fun,\u201d she said. \u201cFinally! It\u2019s about time we get back into some normalcy.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Suzanne Fruend of New Castle was also happy to give her three kids out of the house and into Glenwood for an afternoon of fun.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s good to get out and do some things again,\u201d Fruend said. \u201cI think it\u2019s great that we\u2019re slowly reopening, and it\u2019s important for the town to have some stuff going on for the people who are visiting.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Heather Shires of Denver packed up her family for a visit to Glenwood Springs when she heard things were opening back up.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe come up here a lot, and have been waiting to hear when the pool was going to open,\u201d she said. \u201cSo, we jumped on the chance and booked a room at the Hot Springs Lodge.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>An afternoon at the Caverns was to be followed by a soak in the hot springs pool for her sons Paul and Mason and daughter Scarlett.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSo far, it doesn\u2019t seem to be a lot of people, which is amazing to me, but also understandable,\u201d Shires said.<\/p>\n<p>Kevin Flohr, chief of operations at the Glenwood Hot Springs Resort, said the pool and health club reopened to members and pass holders only for the morning Monday. They were asked to limit their visit and let the out-of-town visitors have at it for the afternoon hours.<\/p>\n<p>That protocol will continue for the time being, Flohr said, as a way to spread things out and maintain crowd levels while the public health restrictions remain in place.<\/p>\n<p>All throughout the pool and club lobby, and in the lodge, signs on the floor direct pedestrian traffic and mark the six-foot spacing as people are waiting in line for admission.<\/p>\n<p>Pool-side deck chairs are grouped in a way to maintain distancing, the children\u2019s \u201csplash zone\u201d area will have 30-minute limits when crowds get larger, and the lap-swim area is set up for circular lap swimming only, instead of lanes.<\/p>\n<p>The line was already formed when the pool and health club opened at 9 a.m., Flohr said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou could just feel everybody\u2019s excitement,\u201d he said. \u201cThey were very thrilled just to have the chance to be able to get back in the pool, and hear everybody\u2019s stories again.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Guests have also been understanding of the safety protocols that are in place, including the required use of face coverings while inside buildings and on the pool deck.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cCity Market and Lowe\u2019s kind of conditioned everybody, and now we get to take advantage of that,\u201d said Flohr, who was the longtime manager at the City Market store in Glenwood Springs before joining the Hot Springs Resort.<\/p>\n<p>Taylor Cline has been a lifeguard at the Hot Springs Resort since the fall of 2018, and now lives in the nearby employee housing. He said he relies on his work at the pool, and was excited when the word came that they could reopen.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt was nice to see people pouring in, and a lot of our locals are back,\u201d he said. \u201cI also talked to a family from Texas earlier, and a few people from the Denver area who were just passing through and realized we were open.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Chris Janus is a longtime Glenwood Springs residents and a regular at the pool.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI love this place, and I\u2019ve missed it,\u201d he said. \u201cI have a bad back and a bad neck, so it\u2019s always nice to come here and stay enough to where it starts to feel a little better.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt was so good for so many people to be here today. The emotional lift has been magnificent.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Eileen Bernal of Denver said they came up to Glenwood Springs for a couple of days to celebrate her husband, Ed\u2019s, 60th birthday.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe just love Glenwood, and try to come up here four or five times a year,\u201d she said. \u201cEverybody has been so nice; even the owners came out and talked to us, and let us know what was going on. We really appreciate it. It\u2019s been a really good experience.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Jeanette Anderson of Palisade said she and her husband usually come up to the Glenwood Hot Springs about three times a week.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019ve been anxious to get back, and are so very glad that they\u2019re open,\u201d Anderson said. \u201cThis is my exercise and my therapy.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Garfield County is preparing a new variance request to send to the Colorado Public Health and Environment that will ask to do away with the capacity and visitor number limits. It would allow businesses to operate with their social distancing plans in place, which could be up to 100% capacity if those protocols can be maintained, Garfield County Public Health Director Yvonne Long said during the regular Monday county commissioners meeting.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe do feel like we\u2019re at the point where, as long as you can maintain social distancing you should be able to conduct business as you want,\u201d Long said.<\/p>\n<p>Through Sunday, Garfield County had 164 confirmed cases of COVID-19, up from 159 late last week.<\/p>\n<p>While the county has seen a slight uptick in the number of new cases in recent weeks, it\u2019s not near the doubling of cases over a two-week period that would trigger a public health response under the county\u2019s variance approvals, Long said.<\/p>\n<p><em><a href=\"mailto:jstroud@postindependent.com\">jstroud@postindependent.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.postindependent.com\/news\/glenwoods-big-tourist-attractions-reopen-to-the-joy-of-visitors-and-locals-alike\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">via:: Post Independent<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Vistors from out of town check in at the gondola base at Glenwood Caverns Adventure Park for their 2PM arrival time on Monday afternoon.Chelsea Self \/ Post Independent Nicole Thome and Art Acevedo were in Glenwood Springs on some business Monday from Long Beach, California when they heard that the Glenwood Caverns Adventure Park had [&hellip;]<\/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-1320404","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-07-02 06:22:54","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\/1320404","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=1320404"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1320404\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1320414,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1320404\/revisions\/1320414"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1320404"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1320404"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1320404"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}