COLORADO NATIONAL MONUMENT Scenic Rim Rock Drive and Overlooks | Colorado 

Cross country riding? Wow. I imagine you saw some incredible things on your travels! Biking through Moab seems ideal as you likely get to take in the scenery a bit better than just going by car.

Very cool! Hope you get to visit again. 😄

Sounds magnificent! Night drives can sometimes be all that one needs to pull out from a low place. 😊

That first place you stopped the wife and I talked to a couple from South Africa. We had a great time discussing Colorado and telling them what not to miss in Utah. I have a lot of memories from watching your travels. Thank you so much!

Awesome! It's always interesting sharing moments with relative strangers, isn't it? Glad we brought up good memories for you! 😄

Awesome! Hope your visit is a great one! 😄

Lots of 2023 left though so we're excited to see if it can be beat. 😅

I can imagine it would be beautiful in winter. Maybe one day! 😊

You're very lucky! It's a beautiful playground to have as your backyard. 😄

Oh wow, that's very cool! Thanks for sharing. We're very thankful to have been able to drive that road. 😄

Any insider tips? Will be there April 21st

It's more of a daydream of being ridiculously close to amazing scenery (any place we enjoy) rather than any particular city to be honest. 😅

I can imagine! You've got the Big 5 in Utah, the Grand Canyon, etc etc. But this park really is worth the drive at least. Glad that you were able to make the stop! 😄

The best! 😄👍

Our pleasure! Thank you! 😊

I can see the resemblance! What a fortuitous stop to have found during your trip too! 😊

What... Too high? 😂 They're certainly a little vertigo-inducing.

My voice got a little higher pitched when Glenn held the camera over the edge @@CactusAtlas

The roads are just as wide as any other. Just stay between the lines and it’s the same as driving to work, except less traffic.

I can imagine. Sadly time is never on our side. 😅

😊

Really wish we had time for more hiking in the park but alas we didn't. What was one of your favorite trails there?

@@CactusAtlas on the east entrance just past the gate. The Devils Kitchen, at the picnic area there is some trails we went up. And part of the Independent monument trail which is at the bottom of the monument.

Oh nice! We kind of passed up Devil's Kitchen on this visit. Will have to hit it up next time. 👍

😅*H8⁹

It's a beautiful area. Well worth the National Monument designation. 👍

I bet it really is. A great way to spend time unwinding I bet. 👍

Our pleasure! 😊

I'm guessing you're right about the goosebumps. Thumbs up to stopping at viewpoints. You never know what you will find and it's worth it to stop and just see if it is worth it sometimes. 😅

Thanks! It was a fun one. 😄

Those drops are no joke! 😅

I’m jealous that you have such an amazing landscape so near by!!!

@CactusAtlas I no longer live there and I miss it, but always take that drive when we visit!! My phone turned the v into village

All that May Gray and June Gloom, huh? I can imagine it gets old. On the flipside, any time we see clouds here we get excited. 😂

You've got an invite here, Steve.

It's SUCH a beautiful area.

Wow, thank you so much! So glad you are enjoying them. 😊

Awesome! Thank you! It's hard to really tell what the birds were. Just kinda hoping that they were eagles. 😅

Super cool! Those cyclists going up and down the rim road... man... not sure we'd have the courage to with those curves and traffic going by. I bet it's fun though! 😄

I left my home in Park City at 4 am to drive into the Monument before the Tour of the Moon stage of the Coor’s Classic bicycle race in June of 1987 I believe. I had no idea what I would be visiting that day and I was so impressed and pleased. I followed the Tour on to Aspen, Copper Mountain and the Vail before heading home. Such a wonderful trip and memories that are still fondly with me. I loved that movie and so enjoyed this video! Especially the cyclist appearing a few times as he rode to the top. 😎

Awesome! That's going to be an amazing trip! 👍

Thank you! 😊

We had a similar experience about learning patience in Yellowstone recently. Sometimes the scenery is just what we need to bring our focus back to where it should be. 😊

Fantastic! If you enjoyed Zion you'll probably love this one too. 😄👍

Our pleasure! I hope to do a deep exploration of Colorado next year. There are a lot of beautiful ghost towns we want to seek out.

Thank you very much! Happy to have you along! 😄

Our pleasure! Thank you so very much! 👍

Did not know. Thanks for the info! 😄👍

Absolutely worth it! I imagine that was a fantastic ride! 😄

It was a little unexpected to tell the truth! But given the snowfall in the area, not entirely surprising. Kind of felt like a special moment catching it. 😊

Neat! Appreciate the info! 😄👍

Totally understand about man creeping in on beautiful views and nature. It kind of kills the moment. 👍

So THAT is what those rocks were. Clearly part of their feud. 😂

The Cactus Atlas accepts no responsibility for children performing crane kicks or other karate moves. 😂

Hmm. Interesting curse. Unsure how seeing such beautiful land and views is a bad thing. 😅

Hope our video helped! 😄

Oh, gosh. Unfortunately this video really covers the amount of time we spent there so I'm not sure we have much advice to share outside of what we showed.

I think the hanging canyon is exactly what it is. 👍 Hadn't really heard of the term before.

Hello. I hope you don't mind me chiming in. I live in Grand Junction and earned by geology degree here. The 'Canyon in a Canyon' that you're referring to is Red Canyon, right? If you look at Red Canyon, the valley floor is rather flat but then you have this distinct notch, a narrow canyon cut into the valley floor. This is the 'canyon in a canyon' they refer to and it's due to a difference in how easily the rocks erode. The rock of the walls of Red Canyon are sandstones and shales while the rock that makes up the floor of the canyon are much harder metamorphic rocks (gneiss and schist) and some equally hard to erode granites. So the canyon walls erode more easily which widens the canyon; meanwhile, the creek in Red Canyon has a much tougher time with the hard rock of the valley floor so the creek (slowly) cuts a narrow notch (I've hiked up in it). The "other canyon" beyond the mouth of Red Canyon is actually all of the Grand Valley, which includes Grand Junction and Fruita. It's a very wide (~10 miles or more) valley formed by the Colorado River eroding a very thick but easily erodable geologic formation called the Mancos Shale. The reason why the floor of the Grand Valley is lower than the floor of Red Canyon is because there's a major fault (the Redlands Fault) roughly perpendicular to Red Canyon right at the mouth of Red Canyon. Colorado National Monument and the surrounding Uncompahgre Plateau was uplifted during the same mountain building episode that built the Rocky Mountains. The Colorado River has had a much easier time eroding out the Grand Valley so it just went around the Uncompahgre Plateau. While most hanging valleys are due to glaciers, this one is due to a contrast in how easily erodable the rocks are on either side of the Redlands Fault. By the way, this same situation (wide canyon with a floor of hard to erode metamorphic rocks and a hanging valley due to differential erosion) is found in the other canyons of Colorado National Monument and areas to the northwest and southest. Rattlesnake Canyon, Ute Canyon, Wedding Canyon, Flume Canyon, and many others are all like this. Great hiking! I hope that made some sense. You might enjoy perusing this really good geologic map of Colorado National Monument. Click on "Plate 1" for the map itself, click on "Report" for a booklet that explains the map: pubs.er.usgs.gov/publication/i2740

Made perfect sense! Really appreciate the thorough explanation and the time you took to provide it. Thank you so so very much!! 😊

@@CactusAtlas Always delighted to talk about geology and geomorphology (study of landform development).

Magic? Haha. Not entirely sure what to call that one. 😅

We don't have an RV so these are things we don't typically think of admittedly. However, I found this page which should hopefully help answer. www.nps.gov/colm/planyourvisit/tunnels.htm

​@@CactusAtlas thank you! That web page is exactly what I needed!

Happy to help and hope that Class C can make it through if you go. 😊

Very cool! Being an Android user myself, I didn't know that and not sure if Glenn noticed that before. I'm sure he'll appreciate the tip! Thank you so much! 😊

They're still relaxing to watch flying around there. 😊

I'm sorry to hear that you find the ads annoying. As viewers ourselves of RU-vid, we get it. I actually remove about 60% of the ads that RU-vid automatically inserts, however, the ads are how creators get paid for the many many hours they spend making content that is essentially free to watch. 🤷‍♀️