Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument

Colorado Springs, CO, August 10 - 14
2721 miles and 27 days into the trip.

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Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument is located about 40 minutes northwest of Colorado Springs. In 1873, farmers in the area had a hard time plowing their fields due to many large petrified stumps which were buried just below the surface. When they started to dig them out they discovered they were Petrified Sequoia Stumps. Then they noticed that the material which they were digging out from around the stumps contained many fossils.

They believe that the area had more mild temperatures 34 million years ago. A Sequoia forest was covered with a mud slide and they died. Later this area became a ocean and due to compression of many years the tree stumps became petrified.

Execpt for the redwood stumps, we did not see any fossils along the trails. They did have many interesting fossils in glass enclosures in the visitors center.

At the visitors center.
That's Pike's Peak to the east in the clouds.

One of the many petrified Sequoia stumps.
They have the big ones under a cover and also wired to keep them from falling apart.

One of the many Sequoias we passed on the trail.

There were also many colorful flowers along the way.

This is called Indian Paintbrush


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