Visitors can still rent paddleboards and kayaks to take in the views on Summit County’s Dillon Reservoir, but getting to the water can be tricky. The lake has receded, expanding the distance from shore to water. The town of Frisco anticipated this and planned accordingly: it bought new golf carts to ferry marina customers.

That’s just one of many adjustments to recreation this summer in and around the 2.3-million-acre White River National Forest. With over 14 million visits a year, it’s the top national forest in the country for recreation. Users are seeing firsthand impacts from a historic weather and water year.

According to the U.S. Forest Service, wells have dried up at seven different campgrounds across the national forest. The lack of water has prompted closures, a situation Public Affairs Officer David Boyd said has not happened in recent memory.

“I don’t know that we’ve had the wells get to where they’re not producing water,” he said.

A handful of campgrounds ran dry this year around Dillon Reservoir: Peak One, Lowry, Prospector and Windy Point were all without water by May 15 of this year. In the Blanco Ranger District, the well at the Marvine Campground also ran dry.

The latest campgrounds affected are the Mollie B and Little Maud campgrounds near the Ruedi Reservoir. The two campgrounds are now closed for the season, but the nearby Little Mattie and Ruedi Marina campgrounds are served by vault toilets and will remain open.

The Forest Service encouraged campers to fill RV tanks before they arrived to conserve water.

Anticipating an unusual year, Frisco never opened its public boat ramp or slip rentals at Dillon, which currently sits at 67% full. The Frisco Bay Marina boat ramp, at a different point on the reservoir, did open this year. Boats that put in are docked at moorings out in the water rather than at shore. An effort called the “big dig” deepened the reservoir in 2019, but the project could not account for conditions this year.

“There was no way to deepen it enough for historic drought,” said Frisco Communications Director Vanessa Agee.

Other reservoirs in the area could not accommodate boats this summer due to low water levels. The Ruedi Reservoir is currently 41% full, having fallen almost 10 feet in the last week. The boat ramp at the reservoir has been closed since Aug. 4.

“The deep mud at the end of the ramp makes it no longer safe or effective to launch and recover trailered boats. The low water levels are due to one of the worst snowpack years on record,” read the Forest Service notice.

The boat ramp at Green Mountain Reservoir closed on July 13. The reservoir stands at just 14% full.

Colorado Park and Wildlife has instituted voluntary fishing closures in streams around the national forest, including the Colorado, Crystal and Eagle Rivers. Each is due to critically low flows and, in some cases, high temperatures that stress fish populations.

Agee said Frisco has seen a dip in sales tax this summer, a time when revenue is generally on the rise. She said several factors could be at play, including national tourism trends.

“Do I think low water levels can impact that? Absolutely,” she said.