Many patrons come in for the Colorado State Park Pass. They appreciate the opportunity the pass provides. Some have even called the pass a mini vacation. It is vital for the patrons we serve to see the beautiful parks and the local surroundings they offer. From people who want a trail to walk, water to enjoy, or the peace of the wilderness, my patrons love to experience these amazing places.
The use of State Park Passes has decreased slightly in the past year, with fewer visitors than in previous years. However, they remain popular for rural Colorado residents who love nature and being outdoors. Despite the decrease in usage, the passes continue to offer great value and convenience for those seeking to enjoy our Colorado State Parks, proving that their appeal is essential to our patrons. We think this program is excellent for Colorado.
Especially in our rural community, it is great to offer a free service to locals who may not have the means or desire to pay for their Park Pass. Supporting a Teen’s Passion for Archery A local teen with a limited budget has been able to visit Staunton State Park regularly thanks to the Check Out Colorado State Parks pass. With the park’s new archery range, he’s been able to practice and improve his skills something his family couldn’t afford otherwise. It’s been an excellent opportunity for him to stay active and focused on something he loves. Helping New Neighbors Explore We always encourage people who’ve just moved to our area to check out the Check Out Colorado State Parks passes, especially since Staunton State Park is just 20 minutes away from the Bailey Library. It’s a great way for newcomers to explore the park’s beautiful trails and familiarize themselves with the area and wildlife.
Encouraging long-term engagement after a couple of visits using the pass, many people get their vehicle pass when renewing their vehicle registration. This helps keep our folks engaged with the parks and encourages them to continue exploring all the great outdoor opportunities the state parks offer. Thank you Colorado State Library for ALL that you do to support Colorado libraries in their endeavor to serve our communities in so many different ways!
Park County Public Libraries is one of the hundreds of Colorado libraries – public, academic, special, and military – that receives, houses, and circulates the Check Out Colorado State Parks unique library pass and backpack exploration kit. When asked (as we always ask on an annual partner survey) for a story about the way neighbors are using the pass and kit, that amazing quote above is what they replied. Their response to that question wasn’t the only one that shared the library’s love for the program, the state library’s partnership with Colorado Parks & Wildlife, and the ways in which people in our communities of all sizes and all types have come back to return their passes and backpacks and said, “I love this. Thank you for doing this. Thank you for having this. Libraries are amazing!” Yes. Libraries are amazing!
From Northeastern Junior College in Sterling:
It doesn’t matter who returns the parks pass, they always thank us. Thank you for the pass and the information and guides that are inside.
And from Ignacio Community Library, a library that serves a rich, robust, diverse community of Coloradans including so many Southern Ute folx who live and around the nearby reservation and tribal lands:
A grandmother dropped off the pass and told us how happy she was to be able to take her granddaughter to Navajo State Park and show her where the community of Rosa used to exist and show her some of the stone foundations that can still be seen when the water is low. She was just glowing.
The stories our libraries hear about the ways in which the Check Out Colorado State Parks program enriches the lives of Coloradans in their communities and the visitors to their communities are innumerable. Before I moved to Colorado from Florida, I hadn’t conceived that a library would carry a state parks pass – and I’d worked in libraries for a decade and visited them for over three! I absolutely never thought I’d be administering the statewide program through a partnership with a state parks department. Lo and behold! And what an amazing gift it’s been. Learning about our parks isn’t something you do outside of and separate from libraries. It’s something you do with your library and in your library. If libraries do nothing for neighbors, what they absolutely do is open the door to possibilities beyond the library building’s walls.
Patrons and staff are always grateful to have the opportunity to use something that is right in their backyard. Patrons especially are surprised that a library offers a backpack with a state park pass which leads them to ask more questions about what else we have to offer.
Montrose Regional Library District (quoted above and referenced below by a different library) – like almost all of our libraries – includes the Check Out Colorado State Parks materials among the many, many “nontraditional” items in their collection. Libraries of Things abound in Colorado libraries, just as they do in all libraries.
Patrons who commute to Montrose from our community find these passes invaluable when they have some downtime. They will get a state park pass and use it to stop at the Ridgway Reservoir on their way back from work to get some fishing in! New residents of our area have enjoyed having them available to be able to explore our state parks and learn more about the area and what it has to offer.
Lone Cone Library in Norwood, like many of our communities in Colorado, is filled with residents who commute from one town or city to another, sometimes traversing mountains and sometimes deep in feet of snow with their studded tires and on our amazing Bustangs and Snowstangs. We ride from one town to another on long, long days and we need a way to get outside and enjoy all the benefits of our amazing beautiful state. In the last couple of years, the success of a low-to-no cost parks pass has inspired the Governor’s Office and the state parks department to create the Keep Colorado Wild Pass, a low-cost vehicle/ tag registration enhancement that acts as an annual parks pass… but not everyone has a car! Not everyone can afford or wants to get this enhancement for multiple vehicles as Englewood Public Library reminds us:
Patrons love the park pass option. Even as its become more common for some folks to have the pass on their vehicle, some don’t. And everyone is able to have access to the parks with the Library Park Passes. I’ve even had families say that they buy it for one car, and then use the library pass for a second car if they need a second vehicle. Thank you for continuing to offer this program.
Even if they did, they might still want to have field guides to explore the park and a backpack to live those Leave No Trace principles in action during their visits.
And what about all of us who live right next to these amazing state parks and never thought to visit them until, one day, we stop at our library that we’ve been to a million times and see a poster that says, “Ask us how to access your state park. Yeah, we’ve got an answer for that too!” I know I’ve been that person. I know at least one person in Telluride visited the Wilkinson Public Library and said the same thing:
We heard from a patron that they had lived in the area for years but had never been to Ridgway State Park. They used the Parks Pass and loved it!!
But it’s not just the newbies and first-timers who are checking out the passes and backpacks, it’s also the ol’ faithfuls, the regular parks visitors and library community members who know that they can count on their libraries to have these items in their collections, something Fowler Public Library can tell us all about:
A few of our faithful patrons use this service every spring and summer. It is a great thing to offer our community.
Thanks to our generous partners at Colorado Parks & Wildlife, the passes and backpack exploration kits have circulated over 60,000 times in the lifetime of the program (since 2016). In 2024, those passes and kits went out over 7,000 times. Whether it’s been someone who didn’t even realize there was a state park down the street or someone who’s been checking out parks passes since the program began, Coloradans know that Colorado’s State Parks, Reservoirs, and Hatcheries are our treasures. Our libraries help our neighbors love our parks in the hopes that they’ll be better for it. Whether it’s hiking a trail or watching for elk or tracking bird sightings on their eBird app during the Great Backyard Birdcount, our neighbors have access to our parks and the only question they will get asked is “Do you have a library card?”… Well… the only question if the answer is “Yes.” If they answer is “No,” then they’ll get another one. “Want to fill out an application to get one?”
If Ike Radecki, Librarian and program administrator for the Mesa County Libraries, has anything to say about it, he loves the program and so do his neighbors.
Colorado is a beautiful state with a varied landscape and an abundance of wildlife, plants, and trees. Depending on what part of the state you live in, there is easy access to soaring mountain peaks, red sandstone country, climbing foothills, and rolling plains. Several of the state parks offer a number of water recreation options as well.
When you borrow a Check Out Colorado backpack or pouch from your local library, you gain free entry to any of those 42 state parks. A person could easily take a tour of those parks across the state, one to three, or a handful of those places, depending on how much time they have and their ability to travel. The program allows for access to nature, outdoors, wildlife viewing, solitude, and opportunity for self reflection.
Spotlighting the area’s amazing, unique, and expansive outdoors is one way Ike matches the “nontraditional” library items with the tried and true LibraryLand collections.
Libraries are amazing, and I might be biased here but Colorado’s libraries are the most amazing because they’re here – in Colorado – and they connect us to all of it, inside and out of the library buildings. Another year of Check Out Colorado State Parks is another year of one of the most incredible things about our libraries and our parks. We should feel really lucky to have this… and I suspect that many of us already do.
