Susan expressed a desire to ring in our 2015 New Year in the southwest somewhere,
as we did in 2013.
During our many trips to the southwest we've driven past, and even through,
Colorado National Monument (CNM), but we'd never spent any significant time or even hiked there. So, we quickly decided to spend a few days in the "Monument" and do some hiking and scenic photography.
On the morning of New Year's Eve day, we made the decision to make the trip, and within two hours we had all our gear packed in "Tina" and hit the road. We elected to stay in the affordable town of
Fruita, on the west end of CNM.
For some reason, CNM hasn't been on my "national park radar" the way so many other national parks and monuments have been. I think it's because of the name -- Colorado National Monument almost sounds like a state-focused park. Plus, other states don't have their own "national monument" -- i.e., there's no "Delaware National Monument". (Oops, as I researched this post, I discovered that Delaware just got its first national monument in 2013,
First State National Monument. I guess we have to add that to our list of places to see.) :-)
Colorado National Monument is very compact -- only 32 square miles, about 40 miles of hiking trails, and the 23 mile
scenic Rim Rock Drive. Interestingly, CNM was made a national monument in 1911, four years before Rocky Mountain National Park (1915). And it's very accessible, just off I-70 between Grand Junction and Fruita, along the Colorado River, about 300 miles from our home.
We arrived just before sunset and couldn't resist a drive up into the Monument before we checked into our room at the La Quinta. Though we'd missed the best evening light, the views from the first few viewpoints along the Rim Rock Drive were gorgeous.
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| New Year's Eve at Colorado National Monument; 450' Independence Monument at lower center |
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| Near Window Rock viewpoint, New Year's Eve |
After we ran out of daylight we headed back and checked into our room. We hit the sack early, as we wanted to be in the Monument before the sun came up.
We decided to shoot the sunrise from the cliffs and viewpoints overlooking Monument Canyon. This was about 4 miles up the road from Fruita, near the campgrounds and the Saddlehorn Visitor Center and included the Window Rock viewpoint/trail, the Book Cliffs view, and part of the Canyon Rim Trail.
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| Our first photograph of 2015, looking over the lights of Fruita |
It was a cold and partly cloudy/sunny morning; only 10ยบ Fahrenheit. Our multiple layers, wind pants and mittens kept us warm and comfortable, and our MicroSpikes kept our footing safe on the powdery snow and occasional ice along the cliffs.
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| Looking up Monument Canyon |
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| Happy New Year! |
The sky was variable with the clouds changing and obscuring the direct sun. The morning light kept coming and going, but it was fun to catch the fleeting light on the red rocks. And with these cold temps, we were seeing parts of
sun dogs, but never a complete halo.
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| A partial sun dog at upper left |
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| First broken rule of 2015 :-) |
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| Looking southeast past The Sentinel into Monument Canyon |
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| Western Scrub Jay, our first bird of 2015 :-) |
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| Looking north toward Window Rock, Fruita, and Book Cliffs |
After a while we drove on up the road, stopping at all the viewpoints, sometimes with good light and sometimes not. We took our time, doing little "micro-hikes" out to viewpoints, and eventually worked our way to the east end of the park.
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| Looking toward Grand Junction from the east end of the Monument |
We were both getting pretty hungry, having mostly skipped breakfast so we could get out the door early, so we decided to have our first meal of 2015 at the modern
Dream Cafe, in downtown Grand Junction.
After an excellent meal, we headed back into the Monument, this time to do a little hike to Devil's Kitchen, an interesting rock formation only 3/4 miles off the road, near the east entrance.
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| Hiking to Devil's Kitchen |
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| On the trail |
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| Susan at Devil's Kitchen |
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| Looking straight up from inside Devil's Kitchen |
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| Looking out from the Kitchen |
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| The rock formations of Devil's Kitchen |
After the hike, the short winter days meant that driving back over Rim Rock Drive we might catch some evening light on the rocks, but again, the light was variable, but fun to try to capture.
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| Canyon Wall near the top of Serpent's Trail |
Soon we were out of daylight again, and headed back to our room to have a light snack and go to bed early, so we could get out for sunrise again.
The next morning we drove to the nearby trailhead off Broadway/Hwy 340 to hike the lower Monument Valley trail we'd looked down on from our drive the day before. The hike begins in pretty much a residential neighborhood, and the trail meanders along inside the park boundary fence, and we were looking at the backyards of homes as we started out.
Soon, we found ourselves climbing into the red rock Monument Canyon, heading to the base of Independence Monument. We enjoyed such magical light on the rocks! It is hard to beat the "red, white and blue" of blue skies and red rock country in the snow.
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| Morning light in Monument Canyon |
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| Sunlight on the Trail; Fruita in the distance |
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| Red light on the snow reflected from red rock canyon walls |
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| One of our first views of Independence Monument (450' high) |
There's a Colorado National Monument tradition of climbers planting a US flag on the summit of Independence Monument each July 4th -- since 1911!
Click here for NPS photographs of this. Also, there's a great
PBS video celebrating CNM's 100th anniversary and chronicling John Otto's story.
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| Looking southeast in the canyon; more reddish snow from reflected light off the canyon walls |
We hiked a little past Independence Monument, and considered going on to the base of the Kissing Couple formation, but it would've been walking straight into the sun, so we elected to head back via the undeveloped Wedding Canyon trail. Same distance back, 2.5 miles, but this meant we would circumnavigate the "Island" formation separating Monument and Wedding Canyons.
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| At the trail junction |
The "Wedding Canyon" and trail were so named because CNM's first park ranger,
John Otto, and his wife were married at the base of Independence Monument, in 1911. Unfortunately, his wife Beatrice, from Boston, didn't care much for life in rugged Colorado, and she left after a few weeks, never to return. :-(
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| Wedding Canyon |
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| Detail from a red rock boulder in Wedding Canyon |
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| Independence Monument |
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| Juniper tree and red rock |
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| Looking back to the trail out of Wedding Canyon |
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| The CNM border fence near the trail |
We were pretty tired after the hike, especially after being on the undeveloped trail, so we headed back to our room, and ended up napping before going out later for a drive to several nearby locations to scout out more places we wanted to visit and hike.
Chief among these was
Rattlesnake Canyon Arches in the Black Ridge Canyons Wilderness, a concentration of rock arches of the southwest second only to Arches National Park near Moab, Utah,
a place we visited in the fall of 2011. Unfortunately, the two main ways to get to this remote area involved either a 15 mile hike, or a 13 mile drive with some 4x4 roads which were inaccessible in the winter.
After this we drove to
Palisade, Colorado to check out another possible hike, and did a scenic drive through Palisade's fruit and wine country. And after a stop at
De Beque Canyon Winery to taste a few Colorado wines, we had a brewpub dinner at the
Palisade Brewing Company, just across the street.
We headed back to Fruita, and packed up for our trip home the next day with a planned stop in Breckenridge.
After a late lunch the next day in Breck, we got caught up in holiday ski traffic on I-70 (and an accident-caused traffic jam) which caused our normal 3 hour drive home to take over 5 hours!
This was a great little trip and a wonderful way to begin 2015!
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| Monument Canyon on New Year's morning |
