{"id":49658,"date":"2020-12-27T19:52:29","date_gmt":"2020-12-28T02:52:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/dark-sky-designations-bring-the-promise-of-tourist-dollars-to-rural-colorado\/"},"modified":"2020-12-28T02:52:29","modified_gmt":"2020-12-28T02:52:29","slug":"dark-sky-designations-bring-the-promise-of-tourist-dollars-to-rural-colorado","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/dark-sky-designations-bring-the-promise-of-tourist-dollars-to-rural-colorado\/","title":{"rendered":"Dark-sky designations bring the promise of tourist dollars to rural Colorado"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

<\/p>\n

ORCHARD \u2014 The first weekend Jackson Lake State Park received its certification from the International Dark-Sky Association, ranger Amy Brandenburg saw more than the Milky Way on her night patrols.<\/p>\n

Campers gathered like the moths and midges that used to swarm around the buildings at night before the park went dark. The grounds were full of them, which was strange, given that it was late September, a time that brought a discouraging chill to the summer fun that burnished Jackson Lake\u2019s reputation as a place for boating and partying with your bros.<\/p>\n

These campers were much different, too: They all seemed to have telescopes, and they whispered to each other, as though they were studying together in a library. They weren\u2019t there for a beer bash. They were there to look at the stars.<\/p>\n

Almost overnight, Jackson Lake had a new reason for visitors<\/a>.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s why the park, which closes at dusk in the winter, opened up on a Sunday night earlier this month to give residents a chance to watch the Geminid meteors. The temperature dipped into the single digits, with a thick blanket of snow smothering campsites, and yet, stargazers whooped and hollered louder than Morgan County\u2019s yelping coyotes every time a burning light tore across the sky.<\/p>\n

\"Anglers
Anglers wait for a bite on the shores of a busy Jackson Lake State Park on May 17, 2020.<\/span>Eric Lubbers\/The Colorado Sun<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Liz Law-Evans, 59, of Broomfield, would have never considered camping at Jackson in the winter \u2014 \u201cI\u2019m allergic to being cold,\u201d she said \u2014 but she found the state park\u2019s tweet about seeing the meteors hard to resist and proposed a trip with her husband, John Evans, 62, and their daughter, Lily, 19.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were just getting cabin fever with the whole COVID thing,\u201d Law-Evans said. \u201cIt was really fun to hear all the cheers. We saw many big ones.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jackson Lake is riding the tail of a newfound fascination with the night sky<\/a>, as nine Colorado places \u2014 three communities and six parks \u2014 are now officially listed by the International Dark-Sky Association, and there are others who covet the designation for the tourism some think it will bring at otherwise slow times of the year.<\/p>\n

The certification process isn\u2019t too expensive \u2014 Jackson Lake spent more than $20,000 in grant money, but could have done it for thousands less \u2014 but it can take a year or two.<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, that hasn\u2019t discouraged places from applying: Just four years ago, there were 54 certified around the world in the organization\u2019s 35-plus years of existence. Now there are 164, said Adam Dalton, who is the program manager and the only one in the small and overwhelmed organization who looks over the applications. There are hundreds more applications in the works, he said.<\/p>\n

Dalton said there are environmental reasons for this: Light pollution is a common phrase now, and more people acknowledge the damage it does to humans and wildlife.<\/p>\n

\"Comet
Comet NEOWISE as seen from Westcliffe, one of three dark-sky communities in Colorado.<\/span>Mike Pach\/3 Peaks Photography<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

But it\u2019s also the fun, simple fact that as more people become aware of places where people can see the Milky Way, many for the first time, they spread the word and get their communities involved. Many dark sky places, in fact, occur as the result of volunteers. Phillip Virden, an amateur astronomer and resident of Lake City for close to 50 years, just got a dark-sky park approved for his tiny town nestled near a half-dozen fourteeners in the San Juan range.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a snowball effect, and during COVID it\u2019s been incredible to see,\u201d Dalton said. \u201cWe\u2019ve seen an outdoors movement in the last decade, but especially during COVID, people want safe, remote areas to have that kind of experience.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more at The Colorado Sun<\/em><\/p>\n

The Colorado Sun is a reader-supported, journalist-owned news outlet exploring issues of statewide interest. Sign up for a newsletter and read more at coloradosun.com<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Read more at The Colorado Sun<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It also advances the notion of light pollution as an environmental issue<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":49659,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[28],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-49658","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-headlines"],"acf":[],"author_name":"Website Administrator","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49658","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49658"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49658\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/49659"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49658"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49658"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49658"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=49658"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}