Medical calls at Hanging Lake are straining limited Glenwood Springs Fire Department staffing bandwidth, and the fire chief hopes that instituting a fee for the trail will provide some relief.

Glenwood Fire Chief Gary Tillotson said three types of calls to the department require the most staffing: structure fires, swiftwater rescues and Hanging Lake calls.

“Lots of people hike that trail who aren’t well-equipped, who don’t have good footwear or who are just not in shape for that kind of grueling hike. So we run into a variety of issues,” said the fire chief.

The Fire Department’s role in Hanging Lake responses is primarily for emergency medical services. It doesn’t have enough staff to send a sufficient number of responders to do a full extraction of a patient, so Glenwood must rely on the Garfield County Sheriff’s Office and Garfield County Search and Rescue for expertise in retrieving people injured in spots that are difficult to reach.

When a call does come in, which could be anything from a twisted ankle to a serious injury, the department tries to limit the number of responders to only two to four. Still, that can be as much as half of the department’s available medical response staff tied up at Hanging Lake.

Read the full story at PostIndependent.com.