Day 7 – Black Canyon of the Gunnison

Colorado mountain stream

Today was a long day but we knew that going in. In essence we toured one national park in the middle of 6.5 hours of driving, which is really too much but unfortunately necessary to set us up for an early start at Canyonlands tomorrow. We started the morning in southern Colorado and drove to the northwest part to tour Black Canyon. The drive took us on a parallel route with the Rockies, across the Continental Divide, and along a very scenic drive through beautiful canyons following an mountain stream.

Black Canyon (south rim)

We were totally blown away by the beauty of the Black Canyon of the Gunnison. Gunnison, by the way, refers to the Gunnison River which flows through the park and dug out the canyon after millions of years, at the rate of an inch every century. The canyon consists of amazing vertical cliffs about 2000 feet above the river. You can stand on lookouts above the river and basically look straight down about a half mile to the river. The photos don't really do justice to the immense size of the canyon and the sense of awe you feel looking down into it.

Painted Wall at Black Canyon of the Gunnison

We attended a geology talk given by one of the Park Rangers who explained the formation of the canyon. In summary, the canyon was caused by an upheaval of two types of solid rock and then the cracks between the rocks were filled by Pegmatite which is an igneous rock supplied by two nearby and now extinct volcanoes. The result is lighter stripes of quartz crystal in the rock as seen in the Painted Wall section.

So far, we have been impressed by the beauty and uniqueness of the two lesser known parks that we have visited. They are a little off the beaten path but well worth visiting.