Colorado National Monument (Part 1)

Colorado National Monument protects 20,533 acres of canyons and monoliths carved into the edge of the Uncompahgre Uplift on the Colorado Plateau. Rim Rock Drive runs for 23 miles through the monument from the West Entrance near Fruita, CO to the East Entrance near Grand Junction, CO.

Redlands View overlooks the Redlands Fault, which runs down the hill near the center of this photo towards the lower right corner. This fault is a break in the Earth’s crust along which large masses of rock shifted during uplift caused by tectonic plate movement from 70-40 million years ago. During that period, this region experienced moderately strong earthquakes and rocks on the uplifted side were elevated over 1,600 feet above the opposing side. The uplift occurred slowly enough that softer rock layers above the fault plane formed a monocline, or a step-like bend in the rock strata. Over the last 10 million years, water flow eroded away much of the overlying rock and eventually exposed the fault.

Colorado National Monument is made up of many rock layers formed over a vast amount of geologic time. The Precambrian layer on the canyon floors consists of rough grayish-purple metamorphic and igneous rocks (gneiss, schist, and granite) formed from intense heat and pressure deep beneath the surface of the Earth. These rocks formed around 1.7 billion years ago during the Precambrian Era when the area that is now Colorado collided with ancient North America. The Great Unconformity can be found between the Precambrian layer and the overlying Chinle Formation. This is a gap where the rock layers eroded away, representing nearly 1.5 billion years of missing geologic history.  

Balanced Rock View in Fruita Canyon provides a look at Balanced Rock. This 600-ton boulder sits on a pedestal isolated from most of the surrounding rock by erosion along natural planes of weakness such as horizontal sedimentary bedding and vertical cracks, called joints. Water that seeps into cracks dissolves minerals and turns some of the sandstone back into sand that gets blown away by the wind. In the winter, nighttime temperatures cause water to freeze and expand the cracks only to melt during the daytime and repeat the process the following night.

The Chinle Formation makes up the bases of the cliffs in the monument. This layer is crumbly brick red rock (mudstone, shale, conglomerate, and thin limestones) deposited in densely vegetated floodplains or mudflats with small ponds and streams 210 million years ago during the Late Triassic. The Chinle Formation erodes more easily than the overlying Wingate Sandstone, which can contribute to rockslides.

The Wingate Sandstone is smooth yellowish sandstone formed from the sand dunes of an ancient desert that existed here 200 million years ago during the Early Jurassic. It is the thickest layer that forms the majority of the cliffs.

The Kayenta Formation is rough tan and red rock (sandstone with minor shale and conglomerates) deposited by a high-energy braided river system 190 million years during the Early Jurassic. It forms the caprock that protects many of the monoliths and formations in the monument as it is more erosion resistant than many of the other sedimentary rock layers.  

Distant View overlooks the Colorado River and Grand Junction in the Grand Valley as well as the Book Cliffs and Grand Mesa beyond. The Grand Valley stretches for 30 miles over soft Mancos Shale eroded down over millions of years by the ancestral Colorado River. Erosion resistant basaltic caprock protects Grand Mesa, which is the largest flat-topped mountain in the world at 500 square miles.

Over the last 10 million years, small tributary streams of the Colorado River carved the canyons of the monument during flash floods triggered by seasonal thunderstorms. When the streams reached the harder Precambrian metamorphic rocks of the canyon floor, downward erosion slowed significantly but the Colorado River continued to easily erode Mancos Shale from the nearby Grand Valley. This differential erosion produced the signature hanging canyons of Colorado National Monument which rise over 2,000 feet above the Grand Valley.

Over 100 archaeological sites have been found in or near the monument. The first people to interact with these canyons were likely Paleoindians who left Clovis and Folsom spear points nearby at least 10,000 years ago. The earliest evidence of human activity in the monument is a broken Neolithic scraper left by an Archaic person in No Thoroughfare Canyon about 5,600 years ago. Following the disappearance of the Archaic people around 400 CE, people of the Fremont complex came to inhabit this area until around 1250 CE. The Fremont complex were part-time farmers who foraged for wild food sources throughout the region. They left corn cobs, rock art, storage cists, and four check dams in the monument area. At some point, Utes migrated here. They hunted and gathered throughout the Grand Valley, left rock art in the monument area, and built ceremonial structures on the ridges to the south. In 1881, the U.S. government removed the Utes from northwest Colorado and forced them to move to the Uintah and Ouray Reservation in northeast Utah.

In 1906, John Otto moved to Grand Junction and fell in love with the canyons, describing them the following year as “the heart of the world.” To promote the area as a potential national park, he built trails, started fundraising campaigns, offered tours, and wrote several letters to Presidents Roosevelt and Taft. President Taft eventually visited during the peach festival in 1909. Before long, a delegation sent to the area by the Chamber of Commerce of Grand Junction returned in full support of Otto and the local newspaper started lobbying to make the canyons a national park. In 1911, President William Howard Taft proclaimed the canyons as Colorado National Monument, the second national monument in Colorado and the 17th overall. John Otto was hired as the first superintendent of the monument at a salary of $1 per month and spent the following 16 years constructing and maintaining trails as he resided in a tent in the canyons.

Independence Monument, Praying Hands, and Pipe Organ stand in Wedding Canyon in the foreground while Kissing Couple and Grand View Spire stand in Monument Canyon in the background. These sandstone monoliths are the result of erosion and fault lines that run northwest-southeast through the monument. Over millions of years, flash floods, landslides, and repeated freezing and thawing wore down canyon walls around cracks, weaknesses, and fault lines until only narrow strips of rock called "fins" remained. Pipe Organ, Independence Monument, and Kissing Couple all stand along the fault lines.

Independence Monument View overlooks the largest free standing rock formation in the monument. The 450-foot Independence Monument was once part of a rock wall that connected to The Island on the left and separated Wedding Canyon from Monument Canyon. John Otto named the monolith and was the first to climb it along with Rae Kennedy and photographer Whipple Chester on June 14, 1911. In honor of Flag Day, Otto planted an American flag presented to him by President Taft on the summit. On June 20, 1911, he married Boston artist Beatrice Farnham at the base of Independence Monument in Wedding Canyon, however, the marriage was short-lived as Farnham moved away from Colorado a few weeks later and never returned. Otto climbed Independence Monument every year on July 4thto display the flag on Independence Day, an annual tradition that has been taken up by modern rock climbers. To enable his ascents, Otto chiseled handholds and steps and created a ladder by drilling holes and inserting pieces of pipe. These pipes were removed by the National Park Service in the mid-1950s.

During his time at Colorado National Monument, John Otto named rock formations after important people and historical events in U.S. history. Besides Independence Monument, Liberty Cap retains the name bestowed upon it by Otto.