Colorado National Monument (08-22-22)

 

Colorado National Monument literally juts straight up just outside the small town of Fruita, Colorado.  We have driven past this monument several times, and I was thrilled to finally be able to explore it.

It became a national monument in 1911, mostly through the efforts of one man- John Otto. John arrived here in 1906 and found the area so stunning that he decided not to leave until it was turned into a national park.

As a humorous side note, he was married at the base of one of the spires, but the marriage only lasted a week, because he insisted on living in a tent so he could be close to his animals.

He was a self proclaimed trail builder and helped build the original road into the park.  Apparently it was quite and adventure to drive it, since it had over 50 switchbacks going up a steep hill.  Eventually a new road was built and the original one was turned into a hiking trail called Serpents Trail.

This park sits on the Colorado Plateau, which is also home to all 5 national parks in Utah. We only had two days to explore, so we tried to get the most bang for our buck.  There is a scenic drive that goes through the whole park.  We did half of it the first day.

Of course, we are driving on the “new” road, but it is still an impressive drive up the hillside.

There were several short trails we walked- Otto’s Trail had awesome views of the valley.

...and the Window Rock Trail (It’s hard to see the “window” in this picture).

Partway through the scenic drive we left the park and entered Black Ridge Canyons Wilderness.  Our destination was Rattlesnake Arches Trail- a trail that leads to 3 arches.  Visitation to these arches is kept to a minimum due to the “4 wheel drive/high clearance required” designation on the road there.

The beginning of the road was misleading, and didn’t prepare us for the last half mile.  A couple of times Paul had to get out and figure out which way he wanted to attack the obstacles.

When we made it to the trailhead we discovered there are two trails- an upper and a lower. We chose the upper trail, which was 3 miles and of course we were above the arches.

We both said we would love to come back and do the lower trail, and see them from below.

Our second day we woke up to the pitter patter of rain on the camper roof.  It was a slow start to the day because the rain didn’t let up for a couple of hours.  Eventually it slowed, and we figured it might not even be raining in the national monument, so we ate lunch and took off.

We stopped first at Dinosaur Hill, which is a one mile hike around a hill where dinosaur bones were discovered.  The recent rain had turned parts of the trail into a sticky clay mess.  In between bouts of laughter (what else can you do?) we had to constantly scrape 2 inches of muck off the bottom of our boots. Of course, it was too late to turn around, so it was slow going slogging along. To make matters worse, there are no dinosaur bones here anymore- they were all taken to Chicago!

We continued on the scenic drive in the park stopping at all the overlooks we hadn’t seen the day before. 

The scenery  was amazing, the colors brighter due to the rain.

The road landed in the town of Grand Junction, which is bigger than Fruita and has a Sam’s Club and an REI.  We bought fuel at the Sam’s Club, and I bought new hiking boots at the REI.  This is my 3rd pair of Merrell Moab Ventilators.  I like them because they are NOT waterproof, so are lighter and cooler to wear (I know no one cares that I got new boots, but writing it in my blog is the best way for me to remember when I got them!).