Early morning at Colorado National Monument

We have done our research, and we are ready to tackle the best of the trails in the Colorado National Monument. This park, in the northwest corner of this state, is as big as many national parks. It was hard to narrow it down to just a couple trails. We were up early, and drove the pickup to the southeast entrance of this sizable park. We were on the trail soon after sunrise.

We were welcomed to the trail by large groups of these beautiful purple flowers. After a google search, Denisa determined that they are Desert Four o'clocks.

That means they bloom at the end of the day, and stay pretty all night. They are a beautiful discovery for early morning hikers. We don't remember seeing these lovely wild blooms before--maybe because we don't get on the trails early enough?!? They were just perfect this early morning.

We are on the Echo Canyon trail, the visitor center ranger's favorite trail and his best recommendation for us.

It is pleasantly cool this early morning, and it was a nice walk through this white slickrock canyon.

The trail ends in a tall waterfall--during the spring when the river is running. By the end of the summer, hikers have to just imagine water gushing over this tall ledge. Denisa would have been very wet standing there in the spring.

But today we headed our dry hiking boots back on the same trail.

Another sign that we are at the end of the season is the prickly pear cactus. Instead of flowers, their blooms have turned into bright red tunas.

We're seeing more of those lovely purple blooms as we head out on our second trail of the morning.

The Four o'clock plants are huge, as they obviously like their home here in Colorado National Monument.

This is the Devil's Kitchen Trail, and we soon got our first picture of Mark standing among the columns of the Kitchen.

In the middle of this desert sand and cactus, we found this interesting rock room formed by huge upright boulders. It has been named "Devil's Kitchen" for some reason. We think it should be named something like "Another of God's Wonders." Denisa is deep into this boulder wonder when Mark snapped this picture.

The boulders inside are as big as motor homes as we scrambled to the end.

We have found another of God's wonders here in the middle of the desert!

We had been all alone on this hike until a large family showed up to turn our tranquility into a noisy climb-fest as they scrambled over the big boulders. It was noisy, but never crowded like the national parks this summer. We could still get good pictures by ourselves, and the lighting was lovely to show off the big rocks.

We can play the game of "Can you find Mark or Denisa?" in the pictures of Devil's Kitchen.

We hiked on higher to get a bird's eye view of the kitchen. By this time our cool morning temperatures are heating up.

We noticed that the Four o'clocks are beginning to fold up in the heat. They are good indicators of the best time to hike around here. Each bloom only lasts one day, and a whole new batch of beautiful purple flowers will open when the sun begins to fade today.

After finishing our two morning hikes, we drove 23 miles on Rim Rock Drive that winds through Colorado National Monument. We stopped at several viewpoints, and took more short walks. Our last hike in the park was the one-mile nature trail across from the visitor center. It has numbered posts that correspond with the description in the accompanying nature trail leaflet. It has a surprise ending in a very tall sandstone alcove dead end.

This national monument could easily be a national park. But instead, it is hidden away in northwest Colorado and is seldom crowded. We did hear on the news, however, that they are experiencing a record number of visitors this summer. While they had only one tour bus visit last summer during Covid, they've already had 37 so far this year. The visitor center has a maximum capacity of 30 people, which means that a bus-load of people can't all get inside at the same time. It feels like all of America is looking for a place to enjoy nature, and we recommend a stop to see God's wonders at Colorado National Monument.