The Black Canyon of the Gunnison

 

We met Mom and Dad for breakfast. The desk clerk recommended Starvin’ Arvin’s. The portions were beyond huge! Kim and I shared a cinnamon roll that filled a normal sized dinner plate. I refuse to take pictures of food, but I should have in this instance. We then said our good byes to Mom and Dad and they headed back to Denver.

We decided to head to the Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park. It is one of the newest National Parks being designated in 1999. I have been struggling to come up with the words to describe this canyon. The one word that came to my mouth as I looked over every vista was simply “WOW!!!” This place is beyond magnificent. These pictures just don’t do it justice. It was also a cool rainy day.

We took a bunch of pictures. The hard part is choosing which ones to show in this blog.

 

Here I am at one of the overlooks (Doing my best Captain Morgan pose):

The drive runs along the south rim of the canyon. There are many pulloffs and short walks to the overlooks. Most are between 100 feet and 400 yards. By the end of the day we had walked about 5 miles. It was well worth it.

The clouds were looking like it was going to rain and rain it did.

We just hung out in the truck and waited for it to pass. We then continued on with the sweet smell of sage in the air. Here is Kim on a distant rock.

 

 

The painted wall:

There were some people climbing on the rocks below one of the overlooks. Look close.

We then took the road to the bottom. It is about 7 miles long and has a 16% grade. I think it was the steepest road I have ever been on. This picture just does not do it justice.

You may ask, why did you want to go to the bottom? Well to fish of course…I
could see a large trout behind this rock and I wanted to go down to catch it;)

It was a most memorable day. I could only fish for a half hour because we had to make the drive to Montrose to go to church. I felt like I left one of God’s most beautiful churches to go to some man made building. No comparison. Many more adventures to come including more fishing and one aborted adventure.