Deep and Steep - Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park

Montrose, Colorado (92 degrees, hot, blue, blue skies)

We Travel Not To Escape Life

But For Life Not To Escape Us

Anonymous

We like this area. We like it a lot. In fact, it is on our short list of places to live after we stop fulltiming. It's that cool!

Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park

Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park is a treasure. We spent two days exploring this park. Our jaws dropped at the near vertical black walls rising out of the Gunnison River over a half a mile below. There is rock here which brings geologists from all over. It comes from deep inside the earth and rose up after extreme volcanic activity. It's this extremely hard rock and sheer walls which originally led many explorers to feel the valley was inaccessible and that no human could survive a trip to the depths. Even the Ute Indians avoided this area. We sure are glad they figured out a way.

We spent our time on the south rim and loved the numerous overlooks (12) along the road after the Visitor Center. It was very easy to be able to see the Black Canyons beauty up close.  

Here are a few of our favorite photos along the main overlooks. Come along for glimpse of its beauty.

Visitor Center

John is out there checking out the valley below. 

The Visitor Center ranger staff are very friendly and informative. They have some excellent interpretive programs. On our second day we decided to take one down at the base of the canyon along the Gunnison River to learn about a tunnel which was dug through the mountain to bring water to the arid farm lands.

The original road was built in 1909 and now has a 16%  grade down, down, down, to the river. It was another jeep worthy adventure.

We met Ranger Tom at the bottom and he  gave an excellent program about how they dug through this rock from both sides from 1905-1909 and created a six mile tunnel which allows water to flow from the Gunnison River to the valley. There were two teams of 250 men on each sides who slowly picked their way through. When they met up the two tunnels were only 6 inches off. It was an incredible feat and the whole project was supervised by one man.

The ranger had some great photographs and really made the story come alive. This tunnel is still used today.

Going down down down to the river

Plywood dam

Pump house

Ranger Tom

Water enters the tunnel to the left in this picture

As we left the park we saw evidence of the green farm fields below all benefiting from this incredible feat of engineering. 

Leaving the park

Wheat fields being irrigated

We plan to return in a couple of days to take a boat tour into the Black Canyon on the Morrow Point Reservoir. Several of our friends recommended it. Thanks so much!