Contrary to popular belief, employees guarding entrances to the Colorado National Monument do not require visitors to take off their shoes and place them, along with anything metal, in gray plastic trays open for inspection, before entering the monument.

At least, they didn’t the other day when I was there.

They didn’t ask for my ID. They didn’t ask me to take off my shoes. They didn’t wave a metal-detecting wand around my outstretched arms and legs. Yet, I had expected the worst.

After reading the Letters to the Editor in your Grand Junction Daily Sentinel the other day, I could just smell a story — a big one. That’s why I raced to the National Monument to see if anyone would card me.

In her letter dated March 27, 2008, Colorado National Monument Superintendent Joan Anzelmo wrote that “National Park Service recreation fee guidelines mandate that people using passes are the rightful owner and require the agency staff to request identification. On the back of park passes, it states under the signature line that ‘valid photo identification is required for signature verification.’ This helps us to prevent people from using stolen or lost passes. Occasionally when a park is extremely busy, people are not asked to present identification.”

It wasn’t very busy when I was there, yet they still refused to card me. I guess I just don’t look like a terrorist, or even one of those people who would knowingly use someone else’s pass just to get into the monument for free.

No way. I’m one of those rightful owners the superintendent writes about. I forked over my legal tender and am completely “street legal,” as far as a National Monument Pass goes.

An annual Colorado National Monument Park Pass costs a mere $20, good for one year from purchase. It covers entrance fees “for any two pass holders and accompanying passengers in a single, private, non-commercial vehicle at Colorado National Monument. This pass does not cover camping fees and is non-transferable and non-refundable. This pass can be purchased at either entrance to Colorado National Monument or at the Visitor Center.”

But what if the entrance stations are temporarily closed? Can you “sneak” up to the Visitor Center? Maybe, but don’t stop. As the superintendent writes, “Our rangers do check to see if vehicles in parking lots and at trail heads are displaying this receipt so that folks enjoying the park pay the entrance fee just as so many long-distance visitors and locals readily do whenever they enter the monument.”

Since I was in the National Monument, legally, and since no one carded me, I realized I still needed a story, so I took a short hike on Old Gordon’s Trail. It parallels the east rim of No Thoroughfare Canyon and ascends from 4,980 to 6,620 feet in elevation (1,509 to 2,006 m) in about four miles (6.3 km). Near the top, you’ll find wide expanses of slickrock and fabulous, sweeping views of the happy valley.

It was darn nice of Old Gordon to build this trail, but his motives were not altogether altruistic. The trail crosses the wash in the bottom of No Thoroughfare Canyon, (Take a right turn at the sign reading: “PLEASE, no dogs...”), then ascends over slickrock delineated in places by constructed berms. These are the last surviving remnants of a private toll road built in the early 1880s by old pioneer/entrepreneur John Gordon.

Easily hiked today, Gordon charged loggers to use this trail in order to reach their logging camps on Piñion Mesa, above Glade Park. Can you imagine what that guy must have been like, to build a road out of rock in the hot desert sun, then charge loggers to use it? He must have been tough.

Maybe not as tough as the ID-checking entrance station employees in our modern day national monument, but tough, nonetheless.

To get here, take Grand Avenue over the Colorado River as it turns into Broadway. Turn left at Monument Road (across the street from Albertson’s) and stay on that into the Colorado National Monument. If you’re street legal like me, you may proceed with the proper registration proudly displayed on your windshield. If not, fish out your wallet — with ID — and cough up $7 for private, non-commercial vehicles, $4 for individual hikers, bicyclists or motorcyclists. Passes are good for seven consecutive days. Fees apply to those 16 and older.

About .2 miles past the entrance, there’s a parking lot on the left hand (south) side of the road. The trail head is located at the south end of this parking lot and leads to No Thoroughfare Canyon, Devil’s Kitchen and Old Gordon Trail. Follow the signs and remember: take your ID. You just never know ...