Colorado

Mesa Verde National Park

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Mesa Verde National Park

About 1,400 years ago, long before Europeans explored North America, a group of people living in the Four Corners region chose Mesa Verde for their home. For more than 700 years they and their descendants lived and flourished here, eventually building elaborate stone communities in the sheltered alcoves of the canyon walls. Then, in the late A.D. 1200s, in the span of a generation or two, they left their homes and moved away. Mesa Verde National Park preserves a spectacular reminder of this ancient culture.

We visited Mesa Verde National Park in April 2023 while staying at the nearby Mesa Verde RV Resort in Mancos, Colorado. We stopped at the Mesa Verde Visitor and Research Center at the base of the winding main park road to learn about the fascinating history of the cliff dwellers that lived here over 1,000 years ago.

We took the 15-mile winding park road climbing up to the Far View Area. At this point there is a turn-off to the Weatherill Mesa Road, however that road was not yet open for the season, so we continued a further 6-miles on the main park road to the Mesa Top and Cliff Canyon loops. We chose to take the Cliff Canyon loop which took us to two spectacular cave dwelling viewpoints. The Cliff Palace is a huge, partially restored dwelling that was fully visible from an overlook just off the road. Guided tours through the dwelling are available starting in May but had not yet started for the season during our April visit. The second dwelling we visited was the Balcony House, which was visible from a more distant viewpoint across the canyon at the end of the Soda Canyon Overlook Trail.

In addition to the cliff dwellings, we also enjoyed some spectacular canyon views from the various overlooks along the park roads.

Photos of our visit are provided below. Click on the thumbnails to view the photos.

 

 

Riverbend RV Park & Cabins – Montrose, Colorado

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Riverbend RV Park & Cabins – Montrose, Colorado

Riverbend RV Park & Cabins was our home base when we visited Montrose, Colorado, in May 2024.

We had such a good time in Montrose. We went to a concert in Delta and a musical in Ridgeway with my cousin, her boyfriend, and my cousin’s friend. We visited the Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park, the Colorado National Monument, the Ute Indian Museum, Montrose Botanic Gardens, relaxed next to the Uncompahgre River which our site backed onto, ate at numerous restaurants, fished in the river and nearby lake, road our e-bikes along a long bike path to Cerise Park and downtown, went to a raging waterfall at Box Cañon Falls Park & Nature Center you can stand near the foot of, and saw wildlife.

The Uncompahgre River is a tributary of the Colorado River. It’s not an especially large river, but it flows quickly and doesn’t have any significant rapids, at least where we were. Every day, we watched rafts taking fisherpeople down the river, numerous stand-up paddleboarders, and few kayakers being carried along by the current.

We explored the Crystal Dam area about 20 miles from Montrose with it’s spectacular outflow.

The Montrose Water Park (WSP) on the Uncompahgre river near downtown is used by swimmers, surfers, wakeboarders, stand-up paddleboarders, and kayakers. The waterpark also has a very challenging disc golf course along a steep hill.

I especially liked fishing in the small, stocked lake adjacent to the RV park. I caught a dozen or so small bluegills and a few trout. I released most of the fish except for the few that I smoked and ate. I opted for an annual Colorado Fishing license at $130/year because I would have needed to purchase multiple short term licenses.

Riverbend RV Park is a well-maintained by friendly staff and a quiet place to stay on the river. It has two small ponds, a nice fenced dog park, large shade trees, and a beautiful greenbelt. The dogs loved walking in the grass next to the river and watching the Canadian Geese families with their young goslings plunge into the fast-moving river. In spring, hanging baskets of flowers are hung from the trees and placed in planters throughout the park.

We thoroughly enjoyed our stay at Riverbend RV Park in Montrose.

Great Sand Dunes National Park

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Who would expect the tallest sand dunes in North America to be in southern Colorado, some 1200 miles from the Pacific Ocean?

We visited Great Sand Dunes National Park in May 2023, while staying at the Alamosa KOA Journey, in Alamosa, Colorado, about 30-minutes away. Entering the park near the southeast corner, we stopped at the Visitor Center a short distance into the park to learn how the unique sand dunes came to be located in southern Colorado.

During a wetter time, thousands of years ago, ancient lakes covered much of the valley floor. Streams carried eroded sediments from the San Juan Mountains and Sangre de Cristo Mountains into these lakes. Over time, a thick layer of sand was deposited at the bottom of these lakes. Through natural climate change, the lakes have largely diminished, leaving a vast sheet of sand on the valley floor. Predominate winds from the southwest funnel sand into a low curve of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. Storm winds from the mountains push sand back, forming the tall dune field.

The park includes diverse landscapes of grasslands, wetlands, forests, alpine lakes, and tundra, however the tallest dunes in North America are the centerpiece and the area that most visitors (including us) will head for. From the dunes there were spectacular views of the snow-capped Mount Herard (13,345-ft) in the Sangre de Cristo Range of the Rocky Mountains

The visitor center has a trail to the dunes, however we opted to drive the short distance to the dunes parking lot. In order to access the dunes, visitors need to cross the seasonal Medano Creek in spring and summer. The creek typically has a peak flow from late May to early June. From July to April, it is usually no more than a few inches deep, if there is any water at all. During our visit in late May 2023, the water was a few inches deep at most and we were able to easily walk across.

There are no formal trails within the 30-square mile dune field, but the park map shows typical routes that can be taken to some of the dune peaks. We only hiked about 1/4-mile, or less into the dunes, but that was enough to experience the unique landscape and views of the surrounding mountains, dunes, grasslands, and wetlands. The highest dunes in the park are 741-ft in elevation, and are about a 6-mile round trip hike from the parking lot.

Photos of our visit are provided below. Click on the thumbnails to view the photos.

 

Dinosaur National Monument

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Who doesn’t like dinosaurs!

We visited the Dinosaur National Monument in June 2023 and then again in June 2024 while staying at the Fossil Valley RV Park in the nearby town of Vernal, Utah.

The park includes a range of scenery, with mountains, deserts, rivers, and canyons all visible or accessible from the park roads. There are Petroglyphs that reveal the lives and connections of Indigenous people to this land. There are also remains of cabins and farming installations that date from the late 19th and early 20th century homesteaders and outlaws that found refuge here.

The park has two visitor centers. During our visits, we started at the Quarry Visitor Center near Jensen, Utah, at the southwest corner of the park. The second visitor center, the Canyon Visitor Center, is in Dinosaur, Colorado.

The highlight of our first visit was the Quarry Exhibit Hall, a separate building near the Quarry Visitor Center that allows visitors to view the wall of approximately 1,500 dinosaur bones in a large, well-lit building with supporting exhibits and informational displays. Here, you can gaze upon the remains of numerous species of dinosaurs from the Late Jurassic period, including Allosaurus, Apatosaurus, Camarasaurus, Diplodocus, and Stegosaurus, among others.

After we visited the Quarry Exhibit Hall, we drove the 10-mile paved Tour of Tilted Rocks, which included sweeping geology, historic homesteads, petroglyphs and pictographs, hiking trails, campgrounds, and scenic vistas. This road ends at the Josie Bassett Morris cabin built in 1913. When we returned for our second visit in June 2024, we spent half a day at the Josie Morris cabin site and took the two short canyon hikes nearby. Allen was fascinated by the history and legends surrounding Josie Morris, and you can read his post about our visit to her cabin and the surrounding area here.

Photos of our visits are provided below. Click on the thumbnails to view the photos.

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