We were planning on staying at Rocky Mountain National Park, but the weather (snow closed the mountain pass) had other plans. Thus, we ended up staying in Grand Junction — no camping here since we got there pretty late after a heck of a ride on I70 from Big Springs and some fine mountain scenery.

While in Grand Junction we stayed at the local HoJo. While we were there, we had a peek at the Colorado National Monument.

The Colorado Monument is a set of interesting rock formation created by the erosion (canyon building) of the north east edge of the Uncompahgre Plateau. Canyons are carved into the plateau by rainfall (etc.) and as they grow and widen, the ridges between them become thin enough to erode into some very interesting features. The rocks in the plateau are horizontally layered sedimentary rocks. The differential erosion of the various rock layers creates many of the structures. Typically the Kayenta formation (sandstone conglomerate alternating with red and purple mudstone) provides a hard cap rock for the softer, more easily eroded Wingate sandstone beneath.