The Crested Butte News Serving the Gunnison Valley since 1999
New revenue rules make the economics challenging
By Mark Reaman
Ever since the Morrow Point Boat Tours ceased operation because of the COVID pandemic, the Curecanti National Recreation Area has been looking at other ways to fill that service gap. The boat tours were very popular, operating from the 1990s to 2019, and they attracted close to 10,000 people a year.
When COVID restrictions were loosened in 2023, the National Park Service (NPS) analyzed the boat tours and reclassified them under NPS guidelines. While 100% of the revenues from the tours used to go back to Curecanti, the new classification mandated that the recreation area could only keep 30% of the funds. That new funding structure makes the boat tours unsustainable, according to Black Canyon of the Gunnison and Curecanti National Recreation Area superintendent Stuart West.
Tickets in 2019 were $24 for adults and $12 for children for the hour-and-a-half tour.
“The revenue went to pay two captains and three interpreters plus the expenses of the boat,” West explained. “It served 9,700 people a year so it was popular but that is only 1% of the visitors to Curecanti. If we only get one-third of the revenue we would have to make up the cost of things like fuel, personnel, the crane to place the boat. That would be about $200,000 as the price of everything keeps going up. We went back to the drawing board and ran the numbers and figured we’d have to charge $92 per ticket for both adults and kids. A family of four is not going to pay that for the 90-minute tour. The numbers just didn’t work out.”
The Park Service does comparability studies when charging for a service like camping or boat tours, West said. “Given all the factors we are looking for an alternative to the old tours because they are so interesting,” he said. “We’d like a private business to step in maybe with a smaller boat that could run profitably. Maybe we have a kayak rental concession. But the operation must be able to operate with fast water flows when water is released from the dam.”
West noted that there is a private concessionaire that operates fishing tours at Morrow Point. He postulated a similar scenic tour operation might somehow be integrated.
West said a similar situation is taking place with Blue Mesa Reservoir. “We are looking to see if there is interest from the private sector in operating something like a sunset cruise,” he said. “We are looking for ways to serve the public and fill in that gap from the loss of the Morrow Point Boat Tours. You could say it is the end of an era, but we hope when that door closes, another opens.”
