Most national parks are famous for what they contain. Mesa Verde has its cliff dwellings, Yellowstone prizes its geysers, and Glacier possesses glaciers (for now). The beauty of Colorado National Monument (CNM), on the other hand, lies in what’s missing: Its cliffs, monoliths, and impossibly shaped stone formations are the remnants of massive rock walls that wind, weather, and time have eroded away.
It’s also, blissfully, missing crowds. The 32 square miles of high desert draw just 375,000 visitors per year, a million fewer people than nearby Arches National Park in Utah. Perhaps that’s because Colorado National Monument isn’t a national park, but rather a monument, a mostly semantic distinction largely based on who does the designating: Typically, Congress creates parks and presidents make monuments.
Certainly, though, the fact that…