Colorado National Monument is in the vicinity of Fruita. The City of Fruita is a home rule municipality located in western Mesa County in Colorado.
The last time I was at Colorado National Monument was about a year ago. I came over for work. It just happened to be an on-location dry-ice (cryo) blasting job our crew worked at in the visitors centre's lobby. I have hoped to be back, especially in winter to capture the dramatic scenes of the terrain during an inversion day.
In meteorology, an inversion, also known as a temperature inversion, is a deviation from the normal change of an atmospheric property with altitude. It almost always refers to an inversion of the thermal lapse rate. Normally, air temperature decreases with an increase in altitude. During an inversion, warmer air is held above cooler air; the normal temperature profile with altitude is inverted. [1]
Temperatures were conducive. Light snow and icy fog day equal inversion activities, so I headed out west in mid-day.
The panoramic canyon views, vast tableland, towering geological monoliths, and tall perpendicular walls will rise instant awe to any visitor at the park.
Even with the natural erosion and constant change, the Colorado National Monument maintains one of the American West's majestic landscapes.
Before this twenty something thousand acres became a national Park, a lone canyon dweller named John Otto lived here. In 1911 he started a one-man campaign to have his "backyard" declared a national park. Aptly so, Otto became the park’s first superintendent.
"I came here last year and found these canyons, and they felt like the heart of the world to me. I'm going to stay and promote this place because it should be a national park." - John Otto
Colorado National Park | 1750 Rim Rock Drive Fruita, CO 81521 | 970.858.2800 www.nps.gov/colm/index.htm | [1] Wikipedia
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Photos: © 2021 Raj Manickam