Anticipation and Ambivalence - Colorado National Monument - 9/4/09

One of the stranger feelings that comes over a National Park traveler when traversing familiar road is that of ambivalence. Our annual trek to the Telluride Film Festival every year takes us through Grand Junction, a town with which we are both quite familiar.

Parachute with air as black as coal from local mining? - Check
Palisade exit? Check.
Clifton? Complete with Tony Clifton impersonation every.single.year? - Check
Holiday Inn Airport - Double Check

While driving to the film festival in 2009, we decided to venture into Colorado National Monument, being one of the areas that we always passed by, and never entered.

When preparing for the Telluride Film Festival, an anticipation of that night's events pervades the entire day's thoughts. What films will be playing? What films are in our theater tonight? Should we check into the hotel sooner?.......As easily seen, other things can prove to be distractions instead of focusing on the task at hand.

Colorado National Monument protects a 32 square mile area of deep canyons, mesa tops, and red rock formations. Millions of years of history are visible in the monoclines of sedimentary layers, literally peeling back the years and showing each ebb and flow of the ocean that once covered the area, then receded, then covered the valley again etcetcetc.

Once at the top of the winding road scaling up the mesa sides, the visitor center juts over the deepest part of the canyon floor. The film inside was excellent, which although old, provided the necessary scientific explanations.

Maybe it was because Utah is so tantalizingly close, and the rock formations become grander and turn a shade of red not previously known to exist. Or perhaps the real reason is this.....

Colorado National Monument, while striking at some points, just does not seem as worthy of a designation. Canyons such as this are scattered through every nook and cranny of Colorado. A 45-minute drive from Denver has views decidely more spectacular. We embrace all 394 units of the National Park System, but we also recognize filler when we see it. National Monuments are normally the pet projects of a dedicated individual or group of locals determined to protect their homeland. John Otto, our man of question here, championed Colorado to be a National Monument, and fortunately, the great Theodore Roosevelt listened.

We say fortunately because if this patch of land had remained unprotected, it would most assuredly be plowed under with gas pipelines as the rest of the Western Slope is.

However - Utah does it better.

Now if you will excuse us, we now are off to hobnob with the stars in Telluride......but thanks for the stamp.

FINAL RATING

5/10