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Rim Rock Drive is parks day centerpiece
Fresh, black asphalt greeted Jan Muyskens of Grand Junction when she mounted her bike and took off on her first-ever pedal over Rim Rock Drive at Colorado National Monument on Saturday, National Public Lands Day.
“This was something that was absolutely spectacular to do,” she said, pulling into the Monument’s visitor center. “Biking it is more fun than anything else.”
Few things bring a brighter smile to a cyclist’s face than a thrilling ride, stupendous scenery and naturally smooth, fresh pavement.
That 23-mile stretch of blacktop was the subject of celebration Saturday as Colorado National Monument officials rededicated Rim Rock Drive after more than a year of reconstruction. The occasion, complete with free entry into the park, served to remind Monument visitors that public lands are a national treasure meant to be appreciated by the masses.
National Public Lands Day was founded in 1994 to celebrate not only the public trust, but the spirit of the Civilian Conservation Corps, whose volunteers built many roads and buildings in national parks before World War II, including Rim Rock Drive.
Celebration of those roads and trails is also about participation, Grand Junction resident John Douglas said. That means visiting and supporting parks, something fewer young people seem to be doing nowadays, he said.
“Younger people don’t have the time,” he said. “The park system is here for citizens to enjoy. If we decide it’s not something we enjoy anymore, maybe we won’t have it available anymore.”
Make no mistake, Monument officials said, Rim Rock Drive is quite available after more than a year of traffic disruptions as crews smoothed and widened about 19 miles of the highway, precariously perched on the red rock rim of the Uncompahgre Plateau.
John Otto, the Monument’s first custodian and the man who inspired President William Howard Taft to create it in 1911, envisioned a road snaking along the rim of the Monument, but he never saw it happen during his tenure there. The Civilian Conservation Corps began building Rim Rock Drive in 1933, and it was completed in 1950.
“There are few other roads in America where you literally feel like you’re driving through the air,” Superintendent Joan Anzelmo said.
That’s particularly special because a road such as Rim Rock Drive probably couldn’t be built today, she said.
Hewing such a highway out of the sandstone in 2007 would cost too much — to the tune of $10 million per mile — and the environmental impact would be considered too great, Anzelmo said.
“That’s another reason to cherish it,” she said.
While public lands must be cherished, their presence in Mesa County present challenges, County Commissioner Steve Acquafresca said.
Communities here are growing, sometimes expanding to public lands boundaries throughout the Grand Valley, he said.
“The Monument is an example,” he said. “We have issues between private property owners and the national monument.”
Despite challenges, park lands such as Colorado National Monument illustrate for Americans the diversity of the National Park system, eliciting awe from those who visit them, said Greg Gnesios of the Colorado National Monument Association.
The improvements to the Monument, including Rim Rock Drive, have served the public well, he said.
“I was just coming off the Alcove Trail, and I was thinking, ‘What would John Otto think?’” Gnesios said. “Would he approve? I think he would.”
—Bobby Magill
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