Colorado National Monument

The Colorado National Monument is in southern Colorado near Grand Junction.  To reach it, you drive up about 4 miles through switchbacks and tunnels until you reach the Uncompahgre Plateau, about 2000 feet above the valley where the Colorado River flows.  There, you can follow the only park road, Rim Rock Drive, where you drive along the top of the eroded features below you.  This doesn't really describe it very well but you look out on pinnacles, canyons, "monuments," and mesas.

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The Rim Rock Drive is the main way to see the features.  There are some trails but they mostly go deep into the canyons so we stayed on more level ground.  All of the monuments have names, and I understand that one of the popular sports is to rock climb up these monuments.

We drove into the Colorado NM early afternoon, and got a camping spot in the campground.  One loop is for reserved campsites and the other is first come, first served.  We found a spot that was a pull through and found it took a little work to get the trailer level and to unhitch and hitch, but the spot worked really well for a night.  We were about a mile from the visitor center, and there were several short hikes right near us.

We spent the rest of the day driving the Rim Rock Drive and stopping at many of the pullouts to see the various features.
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The next day, we decided to drive the rest of the way out Rim Rock Drive and down the other side exit road toward Grand Junction, and then on to our next stop, Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park.

On the way to Colorado NM, we had planned to stay at Buck N Bull RV Park in Rangely, CO, but we decided to move on as we had the time.  We don't recommend this park.