When you’ll have to pay and how many can hike in a day

If you want to hike up to Hanging Lake in the future, you will have to make a reservation.

The popular destination, which has seen a spike in visitors in recent years, will be adding a feebased reservation system in May that will limit the number of daily visitors to 615 people. It also will add a shuttle service at the same time.

“Visitation at Hanging Lake has gotten to the point that it’s causing some really serious management and environment problems at the site and at the parking lot,” said Aaron Mayville, district ranger for the U.S. Forest Service. “The snapshot here is we want Hanging Lake to exist for future generations to enjoy. Without any management, we were on a trajectory where that wasn’t going to happen.”

The problems led the forest service, the city of Glenwood Springs and others to create a Hanging Lake Management Plan. On Friday, the management plan was finalized.

From May to October, which is peak season, the only way to reach the lake will be by shuttle, bike or foot. During the offseason, which is November through April, visitors will be able to drive up themselves. A permit will be required yearround.

“The whole point of this is we’re trying to manage capacity to a certain number throughout the day,” Mayville said.

The forest service and Glenwood Springs, which jointly manage the lake, are still working out details over the shuttle provider, shuttle cost, permit costs and how to reserve the permits, Mayville said. But he said the shuttle pickup will likely be in Glenwood Springs.

Although a trip to Hanging Lake will soon require forethought, Mayville said there may be some wiggle room for people to buy permits on the day they plan to visit.

The current 615people cutoff will be a hard limit, he said. If two people walk up and only one spot is left, only one is going. But the forest service and Glenwood Springs may adjust the cutoff number throughout the years depending on attendance trends — moving it up to 620 or dropping down to 600, for example.

But if the environment is still being damaged, the visitor cutoff will definitely shrink, Mayville said.

In 2016, roughly 150,000 visitors hiked the 1.2mile trail to Hanging Lake. The next year, it jumped 23 percent to 184,000. Mayville said forest service officials don’t have a definitive reason for why, but they have a suspicion.

“The word has just gotten out,” he said, mentioning social media, newspaper stories and lists that include Hanging Lake as one of the Top 10 places to see before you die.

That giant visitor increase has meant trail widening, graffiti, lake damage and fights in the parking lot, he said.

“The visitor experience was degrading,” he said.