The Shape of Independence

Independence Monument appears from one viewpoint like a tower, but from the side it is the remaining piece of a rock wall between Monument Canyon and Wedding Canyon. About 2 million years ago, floods and streams in those canyons carved into the highlands of Colorado National Monument while the two separate drainages were divided by a high wall of rock that once extended from this area to the far promontory later known as The Island. As streams and floodwaters carved back and forth between the canyon walls, and as freezing and melting, landslides, and floods wore down parts of the wall between the canyons, the formation that became Independence Monument took shape. Today it is largely protected from flooding waters in drainages carved into hard Precambrian metamorphic rocks in the canyon floors, but the sedimentary rocks that make up Independence Monument continue to erode slowly through seasonal freezing and melting and through rain, snow, and wind.

Colorado · United States