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Outdoors | Darla Sidles ran the nation’s fourth-busiest…
Saturday, May 16th 2026

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Darla Sidles ran the nation’s fourth-busiest national park for seven years. Here’s what she learned.

The retiring Rocky Mountain National Park superintendent talks about crowding and time-entry reservations

Darla Sidles, who will be retiring as superintendent of Rocky Mountain National Park in June, holds a painting that hangs in her office of a bristlecone pine that was painted in the park by R.H. "Judge" Tallant. The painting once hung in the Washington D.C. office of Stephen Mather, the first director of the National Parks Service, serving from 1917 until 1929. Mather's great-granddaughter gave it to the park in 2016, the year Sidles took that office. Tallant, who died in 1934, had a studio in Estes Park. (John Meyer, The Denver Post)
Darla Sidles, who will be retiring as superintendent of Rocky Mountain National Park in June, holds a painting that hangs in her office of a bristlecone pine that was painted in the park by R.H. “Judge” Tallant. The painting once hung in the Washington D.C. office of Stephen Mather, the first director of the National Parks Service, serving from 1917 until 1929. Mather’s great-granddaughter gave it to the park in 2016, the year Sidles took that office. Tallant, who died in 1934, had a studio in Estes Park. (John Meyer, The Denver Post)
DENVER, CO - JANUARY 13 : Denver Post's John Meyer on Monday, January 13, 2014. (Photo By Cyrus McCrimmon/The Denver Post)
By | jmeyer@denverpost.com | The Denver Post
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Getting your player ready...
"We had people getting into fistfights over parking spaces. Our entire Bear Lake crew quit after the 2015 season because of the abuse they were getting from visitors."
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