Rim Rock Canyons

Why should it be a National Park?

Rim Rock Canyons is the name of the proposed National Park that would be created by redesignating the current Colorado National Monument. Established by presidential proclamation in 1911, the monument preserves a system of sandstone canyons at the edge of a mesa plateau.

The terrain is a combination of red rock gorges interspaced with red rock buttes. Colorado National Monument preserves a similar setting to Monument Valley, but it displays that iconic landscape would have looked before the isolated buttes separated from the central mesa. Here, it's easy to see how those separated formations originally fit into the larger environment.

A scenic 23 mile drive leads tourists to major sections of the landscape. The road begins at the base of the cliffs and climbs to the rims of the canyons, taking visitors from viewpoint to viewpoint. Trails also leave from this road, making it the easiest way to access different aspects of the monument.

Colorado National Monument lies west of the town of Grand Junction, Colorado near the Utah border. This monument serves as the gateway to many more famous desert parks but is overlooked by most tourists. The famed chain of Zion, Bryce Canyon, Capitol Reef, Canyonlands, and Arches National Parks in southern Utah line up directly with Colorado National Monument, but its different designation and location in a neighboring state means people aren't as aware of it. For this reason, the visitation rates are staggeringly lower to neighboring park areas despite the appearance and grandeur being similar to the Utah parks.

Recently, locals have been trying to raise awareness for their hometown landmark. A committee was formed to push for a National Park redesignation and many local and state politicians got on board. The citizens of Grand Junction are largely for the redesignation from monument to park, but only time will tell if they are successful.

For now, the monument encompasses 20,533 acres of major canyons and formations, but there are many impressive areas beyond the current boundaries which could be included in the future park. The BLM manages two neighboring National Conservation Areas, McInnis Canyon to the northwest and Dominguez-Escalante to the south. Those areas combined provide access to more than 333,000 acres that give a more complete scenic and geological story. Access to these areas is much more difficult and remote, but far more open to exploration than the tour-road based monument.

Colorado National Monument has been on a rollercoaster of support and opposition for National Park redesignation for decades. Most recently in 2014, the monument was considered to become 'Rim Rock Canyons National Park', but opposition doomed the proposal. Still, this remains a perennial favorite for the next park.