Darla Sidles on horseback at Shadow Mountain Lookout Photo: NPS It’s been a wild year-and-a-half for Darla Sidles, the superintendent of Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado. In a mere 18 months, the park has experienced record levels of visitors. It shuttered its entrances temporarily in spring 2020 as the global pandemic forced many national park sites to rethink how to open its doors and keep its staff and visitors as safe as possible. Then, Rocky Mountain shuttered them again in late fall when two of Colorado’s largest-ever fires ripped through the park and burned 10% — the equivalent of a whopping 30,000 acres — of the park.