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<\/a>Hovenweep National Monument is actually a series of small parcels of land scattered across the southeast corner of Utah and the southwest corner of Colorado. \u00a0 It’s a bit confusing to people, I think, for several reasons. \u00a0 First off, a lot of people think that only places with “National Park” in their name are actually national parks. \u00a0 Actually, the National Park Service system includes National Monuments (NM), Nat’l Historic Sites (NHS), Nat’l Recreation Areas (NRA), Nat’l Memorials (N MEM), National Seashores (NS), Nat’l Historic Parks (NHP), Nat’l Battlefields (NB), Nat’l Scenic Trails (NST), and a few oddballs like the John D Rockefeller Jr Memorial Parkway (near Grand Tetons). \u00a0 All told, there are about 390 sites in the United States, plus a few in US protectorates like Guam, Samoa, Virgin Islands, and Puerto Rico. \u00a0 The number keeps rising as new parks are being authorized all the time.<\/p>\nTo make things more confusing, this national monument is surrounded by another national monument: the recently-formed Canyon of The Ancients Nat’l Mon. \u00a0 So as you are driving from one “unit” of Hovenweep NM, you are also in and out of Canyon of the Ancients.<\/p>\n
But wait, there’s more. \u00a0 \u00a0 Some national monuments are not in the Park Service system, but instead are administered by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). \u00a0 Easterners are often not familiar with BLM, but out here in the west BLM owns vast tracts of land, which is often open to recreation, mining, and drilling. \u00a0 BLM Nat’l Monuments often are just open space with a few primitive 4WD roads and no developed facilities (such as a Visitor Center or campground). \u00a0 Sonoran Desert Nat’l Mon in Arizona is one example, and so is Canyon of the Ancients.<\/p>\n