Colorado Monument National Park

1/12/2022 Comments

Colorado Monument National Park

During my trip to Colorado on November 2021 I stayed a few days in a small town called Fruita. It’s a small but beautiful town, surrounded with spectacular western landscapes. I chose this town because from there you have relative close access to different national and state parks, and one of those parks is the Colorado National Monument. The land of this park is part of the Colorado Plateau, a desert region between the states of Colorado, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico and a bit of Nevada, where you can find the greatest concentration of national parks in the US, including the Grand Canyon NP. I already visited some of the parks in the eastern part of Utah that are also part of the Colorado Plateau, and despite this land has the same geologic characteristics in the five states, each park has its unique history, geological formations and also unique vistas.

We used the first two days in Fruita to visit the park in the afternoon because is a few minutes away from the town. The Rim Rock Drive is the road that goes through the park, it borders the canyons and has a variety of stunning overlooks, a few spectacular rock tunnels carved in the mountains, and yes, I got a little scared in some parts where the road was near to the the edges of the cliffs. For me, the landscape was a little bit challenging for photographing because most of the road was in shadows, and some canyons were half in shadows and half in sun light as well. That’s why I used the HDR technique in almost every picture, by combining two or more photographs with different exposures in one resulting photo. My favorite moment of the day in this place was during the sunset, at the Book Cliffs View. Because of the cold weather and the lack of time I didn't have the opportunity to walk some trails, but even if you go there only to complete all the Rim Rock Drive by car, is really worth it the visit.

Here are some the photos of the Colorado National Monument NP.