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 36% of reservations were canceled. Staff also said administrative specialists spent months processing hundreds of refunds.

Maintenance and visitor-access challenges factored into the decline as well. The county’s self-serve permit kiosks—nicknamed "Iron Rangers"—were unavailable for parts of the year, with staff reporting at least one machine down 38% of 2024 and five of eight machines in the Horsetooth District out of service during the July 4 week. Aubrey Hilton, senior ranger for the Horsetooth District, said the department has installed QR-code "text to park" signs and plans to shift fully to that system over the next three to four years.

Staff summarized the county’s aquatic nuisance species (ANS) work, describing preventative inspections and decontaminations focused on zebra and quagga mussels. Inspectors completed more than 55,000 inspections in 2024, intercepted 10 vessels that tested positive for zebra mussels and performed over 1,500 decontaminations on high-risk boats. Fleming and other presenters said Colorado Parks and Wildlife’s new port-of-entry inspections at state borders have also helped reduce the number of infested vessels reaching local waters.

Rangers and seasonal staff training and response were highlighted as core public-safety work. The county reported 15 fully commissioned full-time rangers and 35–45 seasonal limited-commission rangers in 2024. Full-time rangers logged about 1,900 hours of training and seasonal staff received roughly 5,000 hours of training provided largely by the full-time cadre. Rangers reported more than 43,000 contacts with the public; staff said about 77% of those were public-relations interactions and just over 1% of contacts resulted in citations.

Rangers also handled water rescues and enforcement on reservoirs: in 2024 they conducted 90 water rescues, made seven boating-under-the-influence arrests and issued citations for missing personal flotation devices among other violations. The division described several notable incidents and responses tied to the Alexander Mountain and Stone Canyon fires, including evacuations of more than 5,000 residents and staffing rescue boats for scooper-plane operations.

The presentation included maintenance accomplishments and capital improvements: replacement docks at Horsetooth and Carter Lake, a new maintenance shop at Hermit Park, a solar-run ANS inspection station at Satanka and on-demand decontamination and flush-toilet facilities at South Bay. Staff listed routine maintenance totals—for example, about 237,500 gallons of waste pumped from vault toilets and roughly 182 tons of trash removed in 2024.

Commissioners praised the division’s work during the presentation and asked questions about public reaction to capacity closures, the ecological risks of invasive mussels, and staffing challenges. The division said closures are now communicated proactively through opt-in text messages, that mussel infestations can be economically and ecologically devastating and difficult to eradicate, and that the department relies on in-house training and long-serving employees to retain institutional knowledge.

The county will continue implementation of text-to-park systems and further coordination with state partners on ANS interdiction at ports of entry. Commissioners were told the full presentation has been given to county boards and is publicly available.