Sunday, August 13, 2023
Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park is in western Colorado. It is about ten miles east of Montrose, Colorado and 60 miles southeast of Grand Junction. I first visited Black Canyon in 1988, and I have returned several times since, though this is the first time since 2013. That year, Mom and I stopped there on a nice 11-day road trip through the state, visiting several national parks and crossing numerous mountain passes on narrow roads. She loved it! We even did a “14er,” as there is a paved road, 28 miles one way from Idaho Springs, that goes all the way to the top of Mount Evans. Yes, I rode it one year (2006 I believe) on my bike.
The drive from Boulder to Black Canyon is phenomenal in itself. Once outside of the Denver area, the drive is through mountains and valleys with fantastic beauty. I drove US 285 approximately 150 miles to Poncha Springs. I have been on this drive several times, but what is most memorable is a bike trip I took in 1986 from Albuquerque to Boulder. I rode on 285 for part of the bike ride, and driving it this time around was sweet with thoughts and feelings of that ride. It took a lot of energy going over several mountain passes on that trip: Poncha Pass, Trout Creek Pass, Hoosier Pass, Loveland Pass, and the Oh-My-God-Road from Idaho Springs to Central City. Driving it was a WOW experience, reliving that bike ride.
Back to the present day, from Poncha Springs one takes US 50 west for about 115 miles, taking me over Monarch Pass and through Curecanti National Recreation Area. These are both areas of sweeping beauty, sweeping your spirit into inspired good places as you pass through. Gunnison is the only town of significant size along this section of road. It is a natural wonderland of views.
The entrance road to the park is a right hand turn off Route 50. It rises about 1,500 feet over about five miles. In past visits, I have ridden that climb on my bike several times. On one visit, I came to the park specifically to do a running race up that hill. In those days I was into hill climbs: Vail, Aspen, and Pikes Peak, which I did six times 1991-1996.
I was fortunate to obtain a reservation for the night I arrived, a Friday. I was able to secure a campsite the next two nights on a loop that had several sites available that were first come, first serve. I set up my tent, and then I walked around the campground’s three loops, saying hello to several people, stopping to chit-chat and learn about their situations for the weekend.
There were bear-proof containers at each site. I asked the campground host how prevalent they were in the area. He told me if I see one let him know, he’d like to see it, too, as he had been there all summer, and he had yet to see a bear in the park. Another person I talked with is a professor at Edgewood College in Madison, Wisconsin. He is a biologist/environmentalist, and another professor with him is a geologist. They were running a two-week summer course in Environmental Studies. They had twelve students camped out with them, utilizing several tents, and they had two “Edgewood College” vans for transportation. We had an interesting talk about how an experience such as this can be a pivot point for a student. First of all, most of the students have never been out west or into the mountains. It is a real eye opener, coming into the mountains for the first time, and to do so at college age, well it is a formative time in life, and it can have great impact. Second, they obtain hands-on, scientific knowledge and skill in the natural world, close to the Earth, day and night for those two weeks.
I also stopped to talk with a youngish couple originally from the northwest, now living and working in the Denver area. They were at Black Canyon to do one of the “routes.” I learned at the visitor center that there are “trails” and there are “routes.” Routes are un-maintained, hard to follow pathways from the canyon rim to the Gunnison River. I had gone to the visitor center and asked about a trail I had used, on my first trip here, that went from the visitor center to the river. It was kind of funny how the ranger I asked corrected me in a serious tone, telling me there were no trails to the river, but there are routes. I did the Gunnison “Route” in 1988. It is a steep pathway, going down 2,000 feet to the river in a mile and a half. I recall there were chains in some places as it was so steep that without them one could not likely stop oneself going down or make it back up simply by trying to scramble. I kind if recall telling myself in 1988 something along the lines of, “Well, I did that, and it was good, but I never have to do it again.” That said, it was pretty amazing experiencing being at the river, which looks kind of small from the canyon rim, but was pretty wide and wild close up.
There is an eight-mile paved road that runs along the south rim. I rode it out and back on Saturday and Sunday mornings as a “wake-up” exercise. It is a hilly road, winding along the rim with great views. It was a relatively hard workout, and I attribute that to the 8,000 foot plus altitude at the rim. There are numerous overlooks, but I did not stop at many on the bike, though I did later with the car.
The canyon itself is magnificent. It is a rather narrow canyon, compared to something like the Grand Canyon, and rather than reddish rock like much of the southwest, Black Canyon is dark, with various shades of black to grey metamorphic rock. This dark rock has been injected with streaks of lighter color material, igneous rock that gives the canyon walls a mysterious beauty, as you can see in the photos. There are steep drop-offs in many places, more often than not, though there are a few areas where it seems the canyon walls are less treacherous, and these areas are lined with trees and vegetation. I was surprised to see Prickly Pear and Yucca as plants growing in this area, as winters are very cold, and the ground is snow covered much of the winter and early spring.
I drove to the overlooks on both Saturday and Sunday afternoons. I have to mention, this is a very uncrowded park, kind of a gem off the beaten path. There is easy access to beauty and solitude, and standing or sitting on the canyon rim can be a very inspiring contemplative experience. One can sit in quiet uninterrupted stillness for substantial time at almost any of the overlooks by wandering just a little bit off the path. I spent four+ hours doing the overlooks on Saturday afternoon. Again, I talked with several people about the park, life, and whatever came up: a retired couple living in Montrose, they were Jehovah’s Witness’, and they had an anti-war poster set up at an overlook, but we talked not about that. We talked about camping in Death Valley, Valley of Fire State Park, and Lake Mead; there was a couple with their 20-something year old daughter from Europe, I took photos of them at one overlook; a couple from New Jersey who had retired to Florida, he now kind of wished they had retired to the west somewhere; a woman who had come to the park having just been told about it, and, having some spare time, figured “why not?” We talked a few times at different overlooks. She was in Montrose, it seemed, for the weekend and was flying out of Gunnison on Sunday, to where, I do not know.
It is amazing how many people one can meet on the road, and national parks are a place to expand one’s world with a simple “Hello!” We move in and out of each other’s lives for a brief period of time, almost exclusively, but those short exchanges can be inspiringly meaningful and fun.
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