KANANASKIS COUNTRY – Alberta Parks hopes survey data collected at a popular destination for outdoor enthusiasts in Kananaskis Country will help shape future strategies to better understand and manage the number of visitors to the area.
Debbie Mucha, Kananaskis West area manager with Alberta Parks, said the Highwood Pass – Canada’s highest paved road at an elevation of 2,206 metres above sea level – has experienced steady use over the years, with late summer and early fall months since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic being the exception.
“Due to social media, due to the popularity of the outdoors and a variety of other reasons – the Highwood has become very, very popular,” said Mucha in a recent presentation to Kananaskis Improvement District (KID) council.
“We’ve always had fairly steady use of the highway but it’s really gotten to a point where we really don’t know what to do with the highway anymore.”
While the section of Highway 40 from Peter Lougheed Provincial Park to the Highwood Junction is closed to vehicle traffic each year from Dec. 1 to June 14, the Highwood Pass can look much different during peak periods in the remaining months with trail and trailhead congestion, overcrowding and parking becoming predominant issues in recent years.
During larch season in particular, Mucha likened the Highwood Pass to “Black Friday at Walmart.”
“Except it’s every weekend,” she said.
According to Alberta Parks, there were more than 3.4 million visitors from January to September 2022. Over 450,000 of those visited K-Country in September alone.
Ptarmigan Cirque’s relatively small trailhead parking lot saw massive lines of parked cars spill over onto the highway during one particularly busy weekend at the end of September. For more than one-and-a-half kilometres, cars lined both sides of the road, stretching to the south all the way to another popular trailhead parking area.
During larch season last fall, a number of measures were in place to support public safety including reduced speed limits along the Highwood Pass on weekends, additional parking controls and more staff deployed in the area.
Alberta Parks has been studying visitation patterns to inform a future visitor management strategy that supports the visitor experience while continuing to protect the region for future generations, including making decisions about parking and trailhead access.
A user survey, spearheaded by Kananaskis Parks planning lead Peggy Holroyd, was conducted in-person during peak visitation periods in the Highwood Pass in the summer and fall of 2022. It collected data from over 360 parties, representing 1,218 total respondents.
Surveyors asked a variety of questions about visitors’ trips, including what activities they planned to participate in, activity skill level, how often they visit the area, and any factors they experienced during their visit that affected it positively or negatively.
Other questions were asked to gather demographics information, such as visitor age, gender, education, household income, and where people were visiting from.
In a recent presentation to KID council, Holroyd said the survey found a need to develop visitor use management strategies to address issues such as inadequate control of parking beyond lot size, insufficient facilities for current use and degradation of designated trails.
However, she stressed it was not done with the intent of pursuing any one particular project.
“This is baseline research into some social sciences to understand use and experience, and it is not about a particular initiative that we are pursuing,” she told council. “I have my own interests using it to understand visitor management strategies, particularly during that September-October period.”
Of those surveyed in the months of September and October, during larch season, about 25 per said they experienced a lack of parking during their visit. Another 20 per cent found the area to be too crowded, while 15 per cent said they felt there was a lack of amenities such as washrooms.
The number of respondents that described positive experiences, however, outweighed the number of negative. Thirty-eight per cent of respondents said they experienced well-designed parking and road access during their visit within the same period.
Of those surveyed during each time period, most were using the area for hiking and sightseeing purposes. While the highway was closed in June, 91 per cent of users were in the area to road-bike.
Consistently, over 75 per cent of people said they enjoyed the ‘wildness’ of the Highwood Pass area, even during peak visitation times, though many also reported negative experiences with noise from people and overcrowding in the fall.
On busy weekends, Parks officials observed parking overflowing onto the highway from full trailhead parking lots, as well as vehicles parked on vegetation and into treed areas, in some cases.
KID council has previously discussed the idea of implementing seasonal public transit in K-Country to ease traffic and parking strain along the Highway 40 corridor and addressing ecological concerns with expanding or building more parking lots.
“As somebody who’s very interested in transit and transportation in the Kananaskis area, I thought some of the statistics on access to trailheads and roadside congestion were fascinating and raise all sorts of questions about the kind of infrastructure that we need to support visitors,” said Coun. Darren Enns in response to the survey findings.
“Is it building more parking lots or is it building better access? Those are great questions that I think we’ll have in the future as a council.”
An upcoming feasibility study will better determine the need for public transit and impact to visitors, with consideration for the Highwood Pass and other popular sites along Highway 40.
In a statement to the Outlook, Ministry of Environment and Protected Areas communications advisor Bridget Burgess-Ferrari said the province is committed to supporting positive visitor experiences while continuing to protect the region for future generations to enjoy.
“A future visitor management strategy would seek to address existing issues and support positive visitor experiences while maintaining ecological values,” she said.
The Local Journalism Initiative is funded by the Government of Canada. The position covers Îyârhe (Stoney) Nakoda First Nation and Kananaskis Country.
