Black Canyon of the Gunnison

 

It's been awhile since I've written in here, but as I look back over the calendar of blog entries, I missed a couple of other months last year too, so now I don't feel so bad. This is a continuation of the series that I started back in October for my road trip I took in the middle of October to Colorado and Utah. 

Back in October, I wrote about my first full day in Colorado and my visit to Colorado National Monument. I had hosted a geocaching coffee event that morning, then toured the monument for most of the day afterwards. The next day, I drove southward out of Grand Junction heading for Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park. I'd been to the park previously, before it had been upgraded to national park status, but the time gap between visits of over 50 years made me want to go back and see it again, as all I could recall of the park was that it was very vertical.

On thing that I noticed as I got to the park was that it was surprisingly busy for it being the middle of October. I figured that I'd have the park mostly to myself, with maybe some other senior citizens traveling around the country visiting sites in the "off season" but that was not the case, at least the day I was there. There were plenty of families and many of the viewpoint areas were filled to capacity with cars. 

As a kid, you don't remember things like parking problems, but I couldn't help but wonder what this would be like in the middle of summer during the height of the tourist season. And of course, my mind went back to that summer day over 50 years ago when my dad hopped us all in the station wagon for the trip north from our base camp in what I believe was Durango to visit this seldom visited national monument. Perhaps, the upgrade to national park status has boosted tourism to the place, but I still couldn't help but think that the minuscule parking lots during the summer would not be a positive experience for the average person visiting the park.

Because it was October, the park was beginning to experience multiple signs of fall with many of the park's deciduous trees and bushes showing off their fall colors. I saw photos from a national park group on Facebook that I frequent where someone posted similar photos, but had been there about 10 days later and they were even more spectacular in color than the one I've posted here. Being from Southern California, almost any color is amazing, so I guess you could say I was impressed with what I saw that day.

As I noted above, the park is very vertical. The Gunnison River carved through the volcanic rock and carved it very deep, but not very wide. At points in the park, the canyon is only about there quarters of a mile wide, but almost a half mile deep. Contrast that with the Grand Canyon in Arizona which might be a mile deep but 10 miles wide and you can see where this little canyon can be quite impressive.

As always, part of my reason for being there was to learn some geology and what better way to do that than through some of the earth caches that had been placed in the park. I did many of the tasks that were required by the different earth caches and walked several trails to get closer to the edge of the canyon. As I drove out to Painted Wall, the crowds thinned tremendously. I was actually surprised at this since I felt that the Painted Wall section was the most spectacular in the park, but it also meant that the trails were less populated and so there was time for some solitude, so I wasn't complaining.

It was also in this section where you could really see where the canyon got it name. The walls of the canyon are composed mostly of gneiss, but had bands of intruded light colored pegmatite running through them. This area is also the deepest part of the canyon. Imagine being in Paris. You could stack two Eiffel Towers on top of each other and they still wouldn't reach the top of the canyon from the river below.

I know the nostalgia of wanting to come back and retrace my childhood steps might seem silly to some, but I was glad I came. I can remember being not very impressed with my dad's photos of the park at the time and I know why now. With little to no clouds directly overhead, the sun made for very harsh lighting conditions. Lots of deep shadows so you really couldn't see a lot of detail in some of the photos and my own photos are very similar in appearance.

I enjoyed my time in the park and if I'm ever in the area again, I'll make sure I spend some more time on the opposite rim for a different perspective. There just wasn't enough time to squeeze both rims in on the same day with all the driving that entailed. After spending several hours in the park and enjoying a light lunch there, I headed back to Grand Junction, geocaching all the way back to my motel.