Colorado National Monument

I must admit that I had never really heard of Colorado National Monument before planning for this trip. It is one of the lesser-visited parks within the national park system, which is a curiosity because it is a wonderful park. I must thank my friend Roger for loaning me his photo books for the southwest. Were it not for those books, I probably never would have stopped at this park. My original plan was to head straight for Arches National Park after Nebraska, but I found out in the meantime that now is not a good time to go to Moab. That is, unless you own a Jeep rock-crawler! As it turns out all this week Moab is hosting the "Easter Jeep Safari". Off-road enthusiasts come from all over the country for this event, so as you can imagine finding a place to stay is next to impossible.

So, I altered my plan a bit and will hit Arches next week, after Easter. Enter Colorado National Monument! I decided to spend a couple of days in Grand Junction, Colorado and explore Colorado NM. As I mentioned earlier, this is not a very busy park... which I can attest to since I spent all day today (saturday, no less!) at the park and only saw a handful of other people (including one young guy from Italy!). The scenery is outstanding, with many canyons and gorges and interesting sandstone rock formations. The main road through Colorado NM is not one for those with a weak stomach, however! Most of Rim Rock Drive is about 2,000 feet above the valley floor below, and many times it seems as though the road is right on the edge of the cliff. It is a white-knuckle drive for sure. The speed limit along most of the road is only 25 mph, and I would advise sticking to it.

The weather today was less than desirable, with snow this morning and rain mid-day. The sky didn't clear until almost sunset. I'm going to head back into the monument tomorrow morning to try and catch some nice morning light, which hopefully there will be. Stay tuned!