Visitors soon will be able to return to a popular area of Rocky Mountain National Park after a $400,000 renovation.
A new trail and overlook at Alluvial Fan, a scenic slice named for the shape it took after major floods, should be ready for phased reopening by the end of the month, park spokeswoman Kyle Patterson said. The area closed in July for long-anticipated construction.
"This will be the park's most accessible friendly trail for all user types," Patterson told The Gazette.
The short, paved path — about a third of a mile, she said — will span the rock field of the parking lot's west side and the brief forest to the east, opening up for views of the mountain-backdropped meadow of Endovalley and Horseshoe Falls.
Alluvial Fan was formed by a dam break and flood in 1982. Soon, the area became popular for hikers, leading the park to build an asphalt trail and pedestrian bridge. Those were destroyed by another flood in 2013.
In 2017, then-U.S. Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke picked Alluvial Fan to announce public-private collaborations that would total nearly $50 million for maintenance across the national park system. That included at Alluvial Fan.
The government sum of $200,000 for the project is being matched by the park's resident nonprofit, Rocky Mountain Conservancy.
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