Earlier this month, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar designated six new national natural landmark, including the Hanging Lake site in Garfield County. CNHP provided the National Park Service with the evaluation of this site that resulted in the designation. Read the NPS press release here.
View of the lake from above. CNHP photo by J.B. Bell
Hanging Lake is a unique example within the Southern Rocky Mountains of a lake formed by travertine deposition, and supports one of the best examples of a hanging-garden plant community in the region. The site is also one of the larger and least altered travertine systems in the area, where natural geologic and hydrologic processes continue to operate as they have done throughout the history of the lake.
