The Camp Hale-Continental Divide National Monument in Colorado provides habitats for wildlife such as mountain goats. (U.S. Forest Service)
In 1906, President Theodore Roosevelt established the country's first national monument, Devils Tower in Wyoming. Last month, the Biden administration welcomed two new members to the prestigious club: Avi Kwa Ame, a sacred Native American site in Nevada, and Castner Range, a former Army training base teeming with wildlife in Texas, joined Camp Hale-Continental Divide in Colorado, which the president designated in October.
National monuments protect public lands containing objects of historic, cultural or scientific importance, but they often have less name recognition than national parks. According to the National Park Service, a national park contains a plethora of valuable resources, whereas a national monument might stand out for one significant attraction.
The new initiates, however, could become the next Grand Canyon, Zion or Acadia, which were designated national monuments before drawing millions of annual visitors as national parks.
"You never know, 10 or 20 years from now one of these monuments could be one of our top-visited national parks," said Nicole Brown, a communications associate for Outdoor Alliance, a coalition of national conservation and environmental groups.
Presently, the newly minted monuments are more wild than tamed. There are no visitor centers, concessions, gift shops or throngs of people. Large-scale parking lots and restroom facilities are scarce, and maps can be hard to score. However, the monuments are rich in other ways, such as Native American culture, military history, geologic formations and ecology. They are also more permissive than national parks, which restrict certain types of recreational activities.
"One thing that makes monuments so great is that there's something for everybody —hunting, fishing, backpacking, backcountry skiing, off-highway vehicle [touring]," Brown said.
President Biden created the monuments through executive proclamation, as permitted under the Antiquities Act of 1906. In 2021, he also reversed the acreage cuts the Trump administration had made to Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments in Utah. According to the park service, as of April there were 150 federally managed national monuments.
The park service manages many of the monuments, but not all of them. The U.S. Forest Service and Army will continue to oversee Camp Hale and Castner Range, respectively, and the Bureau of Land Management and the park service will act as co-stewards for Avi Kwa Ame.
"We are working on interpretive signage for this summer, information kiosks for next year and a podcast driving tour," White River National Forest supervisor Scott Fitzwilliams said of Camp Hale.
Unlike the national parks, with their glossy brochures and comprehensive websites, visitor information for the monuments is patchier. To help with planning, we created mini-guides based on suggestions from the federal agencies caring for the monuments, as well as conservation groups that are rejoicing over the designation.
"Our first goal was to make sure that we didn't lose any more land to development," said Scott Cutler, a board member with the Frontera Land Alliance, a nonprofit dedicated to protecting northern Chihuahuan Desert land, such as Castner Range. "Now, we can plan on how to make it accessible to the public."
The slopes where the Army’s elite 10th Mountain Division trained for winter warfare in World War II now provide winter recreation opportunities at the Camp Hale monument in Colorado. (Corey Myers/U.S. Forest Service)
1. Camp Hale-Continental Divide, Colorado
Total acreage: 53,804 acres
Closest civilization: Vail, Breckenridge and Leadville
National significance: For millennia, Pando Valley was a stop on the Ute tribes' migratory circuit. Once the snow melted, they would travel to the area in search of game, plants and minerals for food, medicine and spiritual purposes. The U.S. government pushed Ute tribes off their ancestral land in the 19th century, but they still foster strong cultural and spiritual ties to Káava'avichi, or "mountains laying down."
In the early 1900s, the hills were alive with the sound of silver mining; remnants of this once-thriving industry appear along the Masontown Trail. During World War II, the Army's 10th Mountain Division trained for mountain warfare at Camp Hale, a sprawling base with 245 barracks, parade grounds, a combat range, ski hills, a stockade and more. Here, 15,000 soldiers prepared for battle in the Italian Alps by learning to ski, mountain climb and survive deadly winter conditions.
"You can get a good sense of the history from the 1940s," Fitzwilliams said.
Some of the structures remain, such as the foundation of the field house and the rifle range's berms.
Activities: The four-season destination is a popular spot for backcountry skiing, hiking, mountain biking, horseback riding, snowmobiling and fishing for brook and rainbow trout.
The monument contains a section of the Continental Divide National Scenic Trail, and mountain climbers can scale 10 peaks over 13,000 feet high, plus Quandary Peak, one of the "Fourteeners" that exceed 14,000 feet.
On the Camp Hale climbing wall, mountaineers can scramble up the rugged rock course used by the 10th Mountain Division soldiers. The less vertically inclined can take a self-guided driving tour of the military training site. The loop starts off Highway 24 on the south end of the camp and features 10 points of interest with interpretive signage.
Wildlife watch: Keep an eye out for the boreal toad, an endangered species and the state's only Alpine toad. Other towering and tiny inhabitants include mountain goats, moose, bighorn sheep, Rocky Mountain elk, mule deer, black bears, mountain lions, bobcats, bald eagles, hoary bats and pygmy shrews, which are the same length as a golf tee.
Tips: The Forest Service reminds visitors to stick to the roads and trails because of lingering asbestos and live ordnance.
"Unexploded bombs are very rare, but every three years we get a call about one," Fitzwilliams said.
If you prefer to explore with an expert, Nova Guides leads summer and winter tours. The outfitter also rents cabins in Camp Hale.
Fritz Benedict, a member of the elite Army division, returned from Europe and formed the 10th Mountain Division Hut Association, a network of huts frequented by outdoor enthusiasts. Three of the lodgings sit within the monument's boundaries. Fitzwilliams said they book up fast in the winter but have more availability in the summer.
The Camp Hale Memorial Campground, which perches at 9,200 feet, has nearly two dozen campsites. To learn more about the 10th Mountain Division, whose members created the modern-day ski industry, drop by the Colorado Snowsports Museum in Vail.
Petroglyphs in Grapevine Canyon in the Avi Kwa Ame National Monument in Nevada. More than a dozen Native American tribes hold the area of the national monument close to their hearts and souls. (Megan Tait for Friends of Nevada)
2. Avi Kwa Ame National Monument, Nevada
Total acreage: 506,814 acres
Closest Civilization: Las Vegas is 80 miles north. For fuel and supplies, swing by Searchlight, Boulder City or Laughlin, all in Nevada, or Bullhead City, Ariz.
National significance: More than a dozen Native American tribes, including the Southern Paiute, Hopi, Mojave and Chemehuevi, hold this area close to their hearts and souls. The Yuman-speaking tribes consider it especially sacred, because of the central role it played in their story of creation.
In 1999, the park service's National Register of Historic Places designated Spirit Mountain, which the Mojave people refer to as "Avi Kwa Ame," as a Traditional Cultural Property, the first of its kind in Nevada.
"The [tribes] express reverence for the spiritual power of this land," said Grace Palermo, the southern Nevada director of Friends of Nevada Wilderness.
The Mojave Desert monument, which is surrounded by national preserves and wilderness, comprises the eastern border of the world's largest Joshua tree forest. Some of its trees top out at 900 years and more than 30 feet.
Activities: Hiking, backpacking, wildlife-viewing and stargazing under an inky-black sky free of light pollution.
Wildlife watch: Lots of creatures roam the desert, including coyotes, bighorn sheep, mule deer, Gila monsters, Arizona toads, lizards and snakes, including four venomous species.
The area is also home to the densest population of golden eagles in Nevada and is a critical habitat for the desert tortoise, the only wild land tortoise in the Southwest.
"You don't see them too often," Palermo said. "They move slow."
Tips: Hike Grapevine Canyon Trail, which boasts the greatest concentration of rock art (about 700 pieces) in the monument, or drive through Christmas Tree Pass for stunning vistas of Lake Mohave, the Colorado River and neighboring states.
"From the high point, you can see the entire monument and California," Palermo said.
The best seasons are spring, when the wildflowers bloom, and fall, when the temperatures are hot but not lethal.
A desert tortoise at Avi Kwa Ame National Monument in Nevada. The area is a critical habitat for the desert tortoise, which is the only wild land tortoise in the Southwest. (Jose Witt for Friends of Nevada )
3. Castner Range National Monument, Texas
Total acreage: 6,672 acres
Closest civilization: El Paso
National significance: A number of Native American tribes — Apache, Pueblo, Comanche, Kiowa and Hopi, according to the White House — resided in the Castner Range, which unfurls from the Franklin Mountains to the Chihuahuan Desert. More than 40 archaeological sites dot the land. Rock art illustrating animal footprints, human handprints and geometric shapes paint a picture of the early inhabitants' lives.
The Defense Department took over the land in the 1920s and used it as an Army training ground and firing range until 1966. At Fort Bliss, soldiers sharpened their combat skills before heading off to battle in World War II, Korea and Vietnam.
The military built a mock "Vietnamese Village," but with the exception of a few cement foundations and ordnance, not many artifacts from the Army's days remain. The majority of the monument is off-limits because of dangerous unexploded munitions, such as such as grenades, mortars and rockets.
Activities: The 17-acre section of the monument that's open to the public has several diversions, such as the El Paso Museum of Archaeology, which traces 14,000 years of natural history in El Paso and the Southwest, and the Border Patrol Museum, which highlights the 99-year-old agency's efforts to secure U.S. land and sea borders.
From the archaeology museum, visitors can stroll the Chihuahuan Desert Garden & Nature Trails, where desert cottontails play hide-and-seek among the cholla cactuses and creosote bush.
Wildlife watch: Look high and low for roadrunners, kestrels, mockingbirds, black-throated sparrows, red-tailed hawks, golden eagles and the prehistoric-looking horned lizard. Bobcats, javelina, mountain lions and coyotes roam the upper elevations.
Tips: Drive Transmountain Road, which wriggles through the range, and brake for the scenic viewpoints.
On the west side of the monument, Franklin Mountains State Park is one of the country's largest urban parks, covering about 40 square miles within El Paso's city limits. In the spring, the Mexican gold poppies transform the foothills into a large-scale Monet painting. "It's the signature plant," Cutler said.
