The Wheeler Geologic Area is a highly eroded

outcrop An outcrop or rocky outcrop is a visible exposure of bedrock or ancient superficial deposits on the surface of the Earth. Features Outcrops do not cover the majority of the Earth's land surface because in most places the bedrock or superficia ...

ping of layers of volcanic ash, in the

La Garita Mountains The La Garita Mountains are a high mountain range in the San Juan Mountains, a sub-range of the Rocky Mountains. The mountains are located in Saguache and Mineral counties in southwestern Colorado and are almost entirely managed as public land ...

of Mineral County, in southern

Colorado Colorado (, other variants) is a state in the Mountain states, Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It encompasses most of the Southern Rocky Mountains, as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the wes ...

in the western

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

about 10 miles east north-east of Creede. The ash is the result of eruptions from the

La Garita Caldera La Garita Caldera is a large caldera in the San Juan volcanic field in the San Juan Mountains near the town of Creede in southwestern Colorado, United States. It is west of La Garita, Colorado. The eruption that created the La Garita Calde ...

approximately 25 million years ago. The area was designated a national monument as Wheeler National Monument from 1908 until 1950 and was Colorado's first National Monument. It is now part of the

La Garita Wilderness The La Garita Wilderness is a U.S. Wilderness Area located in the La Garita Mountains of southern Colorado. The wilderness established in 1964 in Gunnison and Rio Grande National Forests includes segments of the Colorado Trail and the Con ...

and administered by the

Rio Grande National Forest Rio Grande National Forest is a 1.86 million-acre (7,530 km²) U.S. National Forest located in southwestern Colorado. The forest encompasses the San Luis Valley, which is the world's largest agricultural alpine valley, as well as one of the ...

. Lying just below the crest of the range at an elevation of 11,960 feet (3645 m), it can be reached by an 8.4-mile hike on the East Bellows Trail ( FS790), or by a difficult 14 mile

four-wheel drive Four-wheel drive, also called 4×4 ("four by four") or 4WD, refers to a two-axled vehicle drivetrain capable of providing torque to all of its wheels simultaneously. It may be full-time or on-demand, and is typically linked via a transfer cas ...

road. The formations are named after Captain

George M. Wheeler George Montague Wheeler (October 9, 1842 – May 3, 1905) was an American pioneering explorer and cartographer, leader of the Wheeler Survey, one of the major surveys of the western United States in the late nineteenth century. Wheeler was bo ...

, who explored and surveyed this area in 1874 for the

U.S. Army The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, cl ...

External links

USDA.gov: official site

Wheeler Geologic Area
at

Atlas Obscura ''Atlas Obscura'' is an American-based online magazine and travel company. It was founded in 2009 by author Joshua Foer and documentary filmmaker/author Dylan Thuras. It catalogs unusual and obscure travel destinations via user-generated conten ...

Sangres.com: photo and maps
Protected areas of Mineral County, Colorado Former National Monuments of the United States Volcanism of Colorado Oligocene volcanism

Further reading

External links