Colorado National Monument

About Colorado National Monument

The park hosts a wide range of wildlife, including red-tailed hawks, golden eagles, ravens, desert bighorn sheep, and coyotes. Nearby are the Book Cliffs and the largest flat-topped mountain in the world, the Grand Mesa. The monument’s feature attraction is Monument Canyon, which runs the width of the park. If you aren’t the hiking type, you could just drive through the Colorado National Monument. The average drive, without stops, takes 45 minutes to one hour. But plan for more time if you would like to take photographs, or stop at the overlooks, or if you decide to hike after checking out the Monument and want to see more. There is one entrance at each end of Rim Rock Drive. The west entrance is located off of Highway 340 in Fruita, CO. Ecologically, Colorado National Monument sits on a large area of high desert in Western Colorado, though under the Köppen climate classification, it is classified as temperate semi-arid. Summers are hot and dry while winters are cold with little snow. Temperatures in summer reach 100°F (38°C) on 6.0 days per summer, 90°F (32°C) on another 62.3 days. Highest ever temp was 107.2°F (42°C). So yes, it’s hot here, but as we like to say in Colorado - ‘“it’s a dry heat!”. In the winter, only 21.8 inches of snow falls here (or 55.9 cm). Record all time low temp was −18°F (−28°C), set in January of 1940.