Arches National Park Visitor Access and Experience Update

Thank you for your continued interest in visitor access and experience at Arches National Park ("the park"). Since we last sought your feedback in 2021, the park completed several studies to gain a better understanding of visitor access, use, and experience issues and various solutions that could address issues related to sustained high levels of visitation. This included two years of pilot timed-entry reservation systems at the main entrance to the park. The National Park Service (NPS) is now seeking your feedback on your experiences during the pilots, and on other potential long-term strategies the park may consider to balance visitor access with resource protection and quality experiences. The NPS encourages your participation during this civic engagement phase and we invite you to submit any ideas, questions, and comments on the information presented in this newsletter.

The NPS has conducted over 10 years of data collection efforts, studies, and feasibility analyses to further explore visitor access and experience management actions at the park. Data collection has included information on vehicle congestion, entrance wait times and queue length, parking utilization, and visitor experience quality. The NPS will consider all the previous actions, studies, and stakeholder engagement, in addition to feedback we receive during this current public comment period. Your input will be instrumental as we consider next steps the park may take to provide predictable, safe, and efficient visitor access to Arches National Park.

WHEN MAKING PUBLIC COMMENTS, PLEASE CONSIDER THE FOLLOWING QUESTIONS:

1) What issues, objectives, and goals should be considered when evaluating visitor access management at Arches National Park?

2) What do you like or dislike about the strategies presented in this newsletter?

3) What other strategies should be considered and why?

4) What did you learn from the two years of managed access pilots at Arches National Park? What worked well for you? What could have been better?

Please submit ALL comments no later than December 1, 2023.  

Comments will not be accepted by fax, e-mail, or any other way than those specified above. Bulk comments in any format (hard copy or electronic) submitted on behalf of others will not be accepted. Before including your address, phone number, email address, or other personal identifying information in your comment, you should be aware that your entire comment—including your personal identifying information—may be made publicly available at any time. While you can ask us in your comment to withhold your personal identifying information from public review, we cannot guarantee that we will be able to do so. 

Following this comment period, the NPS will review all feedback received and plans to release a comment summary report in Winter 2023.

Document Content:

Arches Newsletter   (4.8 MB, PDF file) Disclaimer: Links within the above document(s) were valid as of the date published. Note: Some of the files may be in PDF format and can be viewed using the Adobe Acrobat Reader software. You may download a free copy of from Adobe Systems.