Day 67 - Colorado National Monument, CO

This trip has been in the planning for a number of years so we are rarely surprised when we visit somewhere we had planned to: it had been researched within an inch of its life and we know exactly what we want to see and what to expect.

The Colorado National Monument was one of these exceptions where we were surprised.

We knew we couldn't make it from Grand Lakes to Utah within a day so we decided to split the journey up and the most obvious place for us to spend the night was Grand Junction.

When we look for campsites, the first place we check is the National Parks site as we love staying in and around the National Parks. We noticed a campsite in the Colorado National Monument and booked it. We didn't think much about researching what the Colorado National Monument was, we just assumed it was a rock formation or a building that was protected by the National Parks Service. We hadn't expected a huge canyon with superb views and an awesome scenic drive that takes you from the very bottom of the canyon all the way to the top and then back down again.

We couldn't believe this place was a Monument and not a Park! We later found out from a ranger that national park status has to be granted by congress whereas national monuments are at the behest of the president. A lot of national parks start off as monuments (including Bryce Canyon and Canyonlands) as its so difficult and time consuming to get the park status through congress. They are later then upgraded to parks. Had we known this, maybe we would have planned to see more momuments during our trip!

Another thing we learnt during out time at the Colorado Monument was that the scenic road was built by the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC). Congress created the CCC during the Great Depression to put young men to work and to enable them to get paychecks to their families. The CCC worked on public lands including National Parks and National Monuments where they built roads, paths, buildings and other facilities. Sadly a number of these men died in the Colorado National Monument when one of the half tunnels they were working on, collapsed.

We were about half way through the scenic drive when we lost the light so we decided to head to the campsite and finish the rest off tomorrow and maybe add in a hike or two!

The campsite we stayed in was very quiet with only a few other campers around. The ground was solid red rock so we put up the inside tent and hoped that there wasn't going to be a storm tonight as there was no where to peg it or the fly down. Lee attach some ropes from the tent to nearby trees and the picnic bench just in case! For dinner we had burgers cooked over the propane with a potato salad and fresh tomato. Lee even made some lovely wraps for lunch the next day to save time on the road. We finished the evening by sitting on top of a huge rock watching the sun set and the night come in.

The next day, we did a couple of short hikes that left from the campground and the visitors center then a longer hike at the Coke Ovens. The Coke Oven trail was going well until I turned around to find that Lee was no longer following me and had instead gone up to investigate a cave! Thankfully he learnt his lesson not to go off exploring on his own when into the cave he remembered that there were Mountain Lions in the area and they quite like dark, cool caves like this one! He hurried up out and met back up with me!

We left the Colorado Monument having spent longer than planned exploring it but feeling like we could easily come back for another trip. It was nice to be surprised!