Rocky Mountain National Park officials are seeing a busy July 4 weekend. It's traffic they hope will boost what have so far been lower attendance numbers in 2011.
Kyle Patterson, a spokesperson for the park, says traffic was holding steady with last year until May, when it dropped by 18 percent. She says rain is to blame.
“Normally the things that people come to Rocky Mountain National Park to do in May is very weather dependant,” she says. “So we weren’t surprised our visitation was down in May.”
Patterson says final June numbers are not yet available, but the first half of the month showed higher attendance compared to the previous year.
Last year, the park had almost 3 million visitors, an almost 5 percent increase compared to 2009 numbers. The all time record was almost 3.2 million and that was in 1999.
