A Brief Grand Mesa History
By Sally Crum

 Long ago, two streams wandered lazily across a broad plain.

Suddenly, from the depths of the earth, bright, hot lava began to ooze up into the stream beds. The lava flowed down the course of the streams, hissing as it snaked along, until it sludged to a halt.  The lava streams hardened to rock.  A million years passed.  Wind whipped at the softer earth surrounding the lava streams.  Rain tore at the dirt and washed it away from the hardened lava.  A little at a time.  Slowly.

Several more million years passed.  The lava streams gradually loomed higher than the softer surrounding land.  They became mesa tops.  A beautiful valley formed between them.  Broad river valleys flanked each side of the mesas, meeting to the west.

Each winter, snowflakes flitted and floated down and covered the mesa tops like soft white blankets.  In the low valleys on the widest mesa, the snow accumulated, never melted.  Glaciers formed in low places and ground through the lava crust, forming soft-cornered valleys.  When the snow melted, it rushed down the mesas into the raging rivers.

Each spring, bear cubs stumbled out of cozy dens and tumbled in the bright sun.  At twilight, deer stepped daintily into meadows and nibbled on new grass. Eagles and hawks soared over the mesa tops, their sharp eyes picking out every movement by the lakes dotting the widest mesa.

Then, one summer, two-legged creatures wearing clothes of soft hide followed game trails along the ridges and climbed from the river valleys to the mesa top. They gathered plump, juicy berries.  They found glossy stone and made fine tools.  They hunted deer and gave thanks for the meat.  They cleaned and stretched the animal skins and made hides for clothes and to trade with others.  When the aspen leaves turned yellow and the frost glittered the grasses, the people broke camp and descended the trails to the valleys below to gather piñon nuts and further prepare for the long winter ahead.

Ten thousand years passed. People with lighter skins wanted the land surrounding the mesas.  The hunters and gatherers were forced out.  Their ancient trails were soon walked by hooved animals, herded up to graze on the mesa’s grasses each summer.  Log cabins were built to shelter hard-working cattlemen and cattle-women.  Day after day, men with horse-drawn slips and graders made dams small lakes swelled into reservoirs.  Miles of ditches were dug by hand to supply irrigation water to the farms and orchards at the base of the mesa.  People flocked from the sweltering valleys to the mesa to fish and camp by the cool mountain lakes.

Now, every fall, the yellow aspen leaves still mark a time of departure and a gentle peace falls over the mesa.  But, with the snow, two-legged creatures return, carving paths with machines and skis.  Only at night, all is quiet.  The mesa seems then as it did thousands of years ago.

Geology and Archaeology on the Grand Mesa
Geologic Cross Section and Life Zone Regions

 The geologic cross section shows the types of rock which form the Grand Mesa. Geologically, the Grand Mesa is a lava capped plateau.  The lava flows occurred in ancient river valleys about 10 million years ago.  Unlike many lava flows there is no volcanic cone or crater associated with the Grand Mesa flows which rose through fissures in the earth’s surface on the eastern part of the Mesa. Geologists have identified 25 individual flows.  These range in thickness from less than 10 feet to more than 70 feet.  The total thickness of the lava cap of the Grand Mesa ranges from 200 to 600 feet.

Erosion in the last 10 million years has removed the hills composed of the softer rocks that surrounded the harder lava filled valleys, leaving the lava capped terrain as a high plateau.  During the Wisconsin ice age, 100,000 to 50,000 years ago, glaciers formed on Grand Mesa.  Some of these glaciers flowed down the north side of the Mesa, over the area where The Powderhorn of the Grand Mesa Ski Area is now located, and into the valley of Plateau Creek.  The town of Mesa is built upon glacial gravels and many of the lava boulders in Plateau Canyon were deposited by a glacial river which was much larger than the present day Plateau Creek.

Your drive along the Grand Mesa Scenic Byway will take you up through numerous ecological transitions.

You would normally only be able to see all of these life zones by traveling north over 1,500 miles.  They include 5,000’ elevation piñon-juniper desert canyons, aspen foot hills, lily ponds and alpine forest at 11,000’.