Florssant Fossil Beds National Monument

 

Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument

Our next stop was to a place that I didn’t even know existed until we saw it mentioned on a TV show.  When we saw it was on the route we had mapped out for this trip, we couldn’t help but stop and visit.  It’s both pretty and interesting on a number of different fronts!  Come see…

Just before we got to the National Monument, we saw this little buck strolling along the roadside, looking for something to munch on.

To see what there is to see in the Monument, we walked a nice path that was a pretty easy hike – thank goodness, as we were about 9,000 feet in elevation.  We walked along the Ponderosa pines and open meadows.

About 34 million years ago, the Florissant Valley was buried by a cluster of volcanoes known as the Guffey volcano center.  Huge volcanic mudflows, known as lahars, covered the valley very quickly, destroying all but the largest trees.  The stumps we saw along this trail, like the one above, was buried in 15 feet of debris.  These were giant redwoods, and all that is left are the stumps, which have turned into petrified wood, which is hard as stone.

Years before this became a National Monument, the area was bustling with tourists.  Various sites exhibited the fossils and competed for the tourists’ dollars.  Sometimes the rivalry between the vendors became quite fierce, with shots fired and even tacks dumped on the road to disrupt a competitor’s business. You can see the shadow of the road as it winds through the open meadow. 

One of the vendors that made quite the business was the Singer Family’s Petrified Forest and Dude Ranch, which they operated from 1927 until the National Park Service acquired the property in 1973.  Above is a photo of the poster that advertised the Singer Family’s enterprise.

It was interesting to still be able to see the tree rings in a couple of different ways in these petrified stumps.  On the top of the stump above, you and see the wiggly lines in the image on right. The wiggly lines were on the top of the stump, and these are the tree rings.  What look like little upright spikes in the image on the left are just tree rings, shown in a different way!  By studying these stumps, scientists have determined that the redwoods here were over 230 feet high when they were buried 500 – 1,000 years ago.

Even though summer is over at this elevation, there were still some summer blooms to be seen as we walked the trail through the meadow.  We enjoyed them while we still could!

This petrified tree stump is called The Big Stump and is one of the largest fossils in the Monument.  Scientists believed that it towered at over 230 feet when it was covered by the lahar.  Before this entire area was protected, there was a failed attempt to cut The Big Stump into pieces to transport to The Chicago World’s Fair of 1893, to reassemble to demonstrate how large the stump was.  There are 2 sawblades (right photo) still in The Big Stump, showing where the attempt stopped.

Scientific research of Florissant’s fossils began in the 1870’s.  More than 150 scientists have followed in their footsteps since then.  The small images of fossils surrounding the main images are ones found by the scientists.

This view is probably very similar to how it appeared when these discoveries were being made.  Standing in the shade of the Ponderosa pines was very welcome as the sun was getting stronger and warmer!

The hill in the image on the left doesn’t look like much, but it’s really a hill of hidden treasures.  The image on the right is a close up of what look like layers of rocks.  These are actually layers of shale, and fossils can be found in between these layers.  The images of fossils a couple of photos back were found in shale just like this.

In this area, about 34 – 35 million years ago was Lake Florissant.  The twelve-mile-long lake was formed when volcanic mudflows dammed a stream.  Fossil evidence indicates that the temperatures were warmer then than they are now.  It is believed that the water level was up around the level of the sign you can see on the path.  I guess one could say this was an example of natural climate cooling!

This group of petrified tree stumps is called The Trio.  These stumps are close together because they are part of what once was one tree!  Metal bands are around the stumps to attempt to hold them together, as small chunks of the petrified wood regularly fall off of them.  Scientists are using photogrammetry to monitor the changes in The Trio.

We then drove a bit down the road to the Hornbek Homestead.  This is still part of the Monument and is an example of an early Colorado ranch.  A pioneer woman, Adeline Hornbek, lived here with her four children. Adeline wasn’t a typical homesteader.  In the 1870’s, after losing two husbands, she moved here to make a life with her family.  She filed a homestead claim for 160 acres.  Within seven years, she established a ranch of $4,000 worth of livestock, expanded her homestead to nine outbuildings, and also worked at the general store in town!!  Talk about a busy life!  This home is the only original building, and I was able to see inside to see how some of the house would have been furnished.

Here is the rest of the homestead, recreated based on the original buildings.  There weren’t nine buildings in this recreated homestead, but these give one an impression of how it looked when Adeline lived there.

Enjoy!