The world’s largest flattop mountain is an adventurer’s paradise

Grand Mesa, one of Earth’s largest landforms, towers over the scenic city of Grand Junction, Colorado, like an 11,000-foot-high dinner table. 

Sitting near the edges of the red-rock Colorado National Monument, the world’s largest flattop mountain was formed nearly 10 million years ago from an ancient lava flow that filled a river canyon. “In cross-section, the mesa resembles a giant layer cake that has been nibbled away from the sides,” says Rex Cole, emeritus professor of geology at Colorado Mesa University.

With its desert sandstone canyons, cool evergreen forests, and more than 300 picturesque lakes, Grand Mesa can easily be mistaken for Rocky Mountain National Park. Travelers can experience it via the Grand Mesa National Scenic Byway or one of dozens of easy-access hot spots, such as Island Lake, a glacier-clawed waterway of clear blues and greens, or the Crag Crest National Recreation Trail, a 10.3-mile out-and-back hike that takes you to 11,189 feet and above seven of the world’s 10 biomes.

Here’s how to explore this vertical world.

Leaf peeping at Grand Mesa

“Anybody can get in their car and see superb fall color on Highway 65,” says Zebulon Miracle, a local historian and outdoors enthusiast. A designated Colorado Scenic Byway, the canyon-traversing road makes the mesa accessible year-round, with fall color seen for roughly 40 of its 63 miles. 

For a more remote scenic drive, Miracle suggests heading to the Trickle Park area in the town of Cedaredge—Surface Creek Road is one of the region’s best for fall color. Visitors can also take a 40-minute detour from the byway to explore the Land’s End Observatory, a defunct Forest Service outpost that sits at the mesa’s rim at 6,000 feet. The area offers some of the best overlooks for the national forest and the Grand Valley below.

(Walk across the sky in the U.S.’s highest-elevation city.)

To explore beyond your windshield, scout out the Mesa Lakes area—eye the 3.2-mile Mesa Lake Trail and its 1-mile spur to the aptly named Lost Lake for views of aspen leaves turning amber and gold through November. Further from Highway 65, the Twin Lake Dispersed Area offers similar views with a more backcountry feel. For avid hikers, the Grand Mesa’s signature trek is the Crag Crest Trail. It won’t get you in the foliage but above it. “It’s a thigh-burner, for sure,” Miracle says.

If it snows—which it can as early as September or as late as June—all the better. “That white ground with yellow leaves looks really nice,” says Miracle.

Try a Nordic ski trail

The Grand Mesa offers one of the longest ski seasons in the U.S.—and some of the best Nordic trails in the country. Thirty-one miles of groomed ski trails run through the Grand Mesa National Forest across three networks. The Skyway trail system, just south of Mesa Lakes, offers classic and skate-skiing routes for every level (including a summit trail) and a warming hut 100 yards from the trailhead. The County Line trail system, near Crag Crest, is suited for beginner and intermediate skiers, and the Ward trail system, on the south side of the mesa, is best suited for intermediate to advanced skiers looking for hundred-mile views of the San Juan Mountains.

(Strap on snowshoes for stellar views of this Colorado national park.)

Experience winter like a local

Because of its high elevation, the mesa creates its own weather, says Cole. The base is dry and desert-like; the top is wet and verdant. That’s most apparent come winter: While Grand Junction averages just 15 inches of snow, the Grand Mesa clocks in at roughly 250.

(These are the best cross-country ski trails in the U.S.)

Skiers and snowboarders can fly down that fresh powder at Powderhorn Ski Resort, less than an hour drive from downtown Grand Junction. Known for its local aesthetic—it lacks the crowds, prices, and haute-couture half-zips of Colorado’s more well-known resorts—Powderhorn’s 1,600 acres lie on the vertical ledges of the Grand Mesa, with 70 percent of runs rated beginner or intermediate. Lift-served downhill mountain-biking trails add a two-wheeled way to navigate the flanks of this flattop mountain.