COLORADO SPRINGS — Starting next year, anyone who registers their car at the Colorado DMV will be automatically opted in to pay $29 extra dollars for a state park pass.
You may be thinking, “Wait, this is going to cost me more money.” But it’s not going to cost you more money if you opt out, and for those who were already buying the current $84 annual pass, the $29 pass is a whole lot cheaper.
Colorado Parks and Wildlife Commission is calling the new pass that will launch in 2023, the “Keep Colorado Wild” pass. The money received will help the state preserve its natural resources. It will also help support the Colorado Avalanche Information Center, and the state’s outdoor equity access fund.
“This is really amazing. This is really transformational change for Parks and Wildlife in terms of how we have done things in the past. We do not want someone’s financial background to be a deterrent to enjoy our public lands,” said Dan Gibbs, Executive Director of the Colorado Department of Natural Resources.
The pass will help fund the state’s search and rescue needs. According to the Colorado Department of Natural Resources, Colorado gets about 4,000 search and rescue calls annually.
One component of the bill allows CPW to partner with the National Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management, which could help the bureau and Coloradans when dealing with state, county, and federal lands that border each other.
CPW is also trying to see if this pass will allow Coloradans to have their parking paid for on certain federal lands too. For more information, visit here.
