“No parking” signs were posted recently on Guanella Pass near the trailheads for two popular 14,000-foot peaks, but even more stringent restrictions are coming for leaf-peeping season.
The signs went up on July 23 on a section of the Guanella Pass Scenic Byway at the 11,670-foot summit of the pass, 11 miles south of Georgetown. Trails on the east side of the pass lead to Mount Bierstadt and Mount Blue Sky. Trails on the west side lead to two scenic alpine lakes beneath Square Top Mountain, another prime hiking destination.
Clear Creek County officials want to prevent motorists from illegally parking on the shoulders because it could obstruct or prevent first responders from getting through in an emergency.
“We had two emergency incidents, one on our side, one on the Park County side,” said Clear Creek County Sheriff’s Office spokeswoman Jenny Fulton, referring to last year’s leaf-peeping season..
“Emergency vehicles could not respond in a timely manner because of the vehicles on both sides of the roadway. They took a two-lane roadway and made it one lane,” she added. “That’s why we started doing some parking mitigation up there, and we’re going to do more this year for leaf-peeping to mitigate the traffic volume and parking issues.”
During two leaf-peeping weekends last year, Fulton said, the number of cars on the 22-mile byway, between Georgetown, off of Interstate 25, and Grant in Park County, hit 10,000 both days. Since then, officials from Clear Creek County, Park County, the Arapaho National Forest and the town of Georgetown have been meeting regularly in order to prevent “a disaster,” she added.
That will take the form of checkpoints on both sides of the pass in 2025, posted with sheriff’s deputies.
“If we need to, we’re going to end up closing the road temporarily just to ensure it’s not overcrowded during leaf-peeping,” Fulton said. “We’re also going to be towing vehicles that are parking illegally and are blocking the roadway. We can’t do what happened last year. We can’t risk people’s lives by not being able to respond to emergencies at the summit.”
Until then, hikers are warned not to park along the road at the summit where the no-parking signs have been posted. Violators will be fined $87.50. There are two lots near the summit, located on forest service land, but they tend to overflow during fourteener season.
“The parking lots are designed for the capacity of the trail system,” Fulton said. “When people are overflowing parking lots and parking on both sides of the roadway a mile down, then there’s too many people on the trails. The trails are not made for that volume of foot traffic. The forest service has designed their parking lots with the capacity of the trail system in mind.”