Colorado National Monument and the Book Cliffs

Palisade, CO

When we only stay in a city for one week, it gives us just one full day of sightseeing.  Otherwise, during the weekdays, we have to wait til D gets off work at 2pm (MT) to venture out.  So in this city, we decided to spend that one day visiting the national park of Colorado National Monument located in the nearby city of Grand Junction.  It ended up being less than 30 miles away from our park.

 

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As you can see from the pictures, this is a beautiful park.   The park is in the desert plateau of Colorado which also stretches into northwestern New Mexico, southern and eastern Utah,  and northern Arizona.  The park has a wide range of wildlife, including red-tailed hawks, golden eagles, desert bighorn sheep, and coyotes.  But the only wildlife we saw were the bighorn sheep that were blocking the road for a bit. 

The Book Cliffs

Just Crazy!

Hiking trail near Mount Garfield

Garfield Mount, Palisade Colorado

Dennis in front of Mount Garfield

On the drive to and from Colorado Monument Park are endless views of the Book Cliffs.  The cliffs are a series of desert mountains that stretch over 200 miles in Colorado and into eastern Utah.  They are so named because of the sandstone cliffs that cap many of them which appear similar to a shelf of books.  I personally did not see the resemblance.  But regardless they are a site to behold. 

The first photo is of folks hiking up the steep rim of the cliffs in Palisade.  Crazy!!  The last two pictures are of Garfield Mount which is the high point of the Book Cliffs, north of Grand Junction, Colorado.  The mountain was named after President James Garfield a year after Garfield's death.

Our next destination: Heber City, Utah