Larimer County reviews 2024 parks, visitor services, invasive-species inspections and fire response

Chris Fleming, Larimer County Department of Natural Resources Visitor Services division manager and patrol captain, told the Board of County Commissioners on May 5 that the division had a busy 2024 and presented a summary of operations, inspections and emergency responses. "We're here today to give you a kind of an overview of all the work that we did in 2024," Fleming said to open the presentation.

The report showed continued high visitation but modest decreases in sales and permits compared with 2023. Larimer County sold nearly 72,000 individual nights of camping in 2024, processed more than 22,000 campsite reservations, sold about 162,000 daily permits and issued over 10,000 annual passes. The county recorded a 3.5% decline in pass sales year over year, which staff attributed in part to wildfire closures and to ending contracts with some off-site vendors.

The presentation emphasized operational impacts from the July Alexander Mountain and Stone Canyon fires. Fleming and staff said both Carter Lake and Horsetooth Reservoir were closed for weeks during the fires, and that between July 29 and Aug. 17 more than…