A Visit to Black Canyon of the Gunnison

October 12, 2019

I haven't taken a lot of time to play this summer as I've been really busy and have spent a lot of time visiting doctors and therapists to get over my car wreck. And I've been surveying for bees more in in my free time.

So the weekend after the Saturday I spent working at the crane festival, I invited a new staffer to go camping at Black Canyon of the Gunnison. She texted me on Thursday to ask if we should worry about the snow. My storm app showed the moving east out of Colorado so I texted her back that there was no problem. 

We planned to leave about sunrise on Friday.  I woke up to 14° which continued to drop to 9°.  But Elizabeth had assured me that she had already survived cold camping, so we set off. I have two sets of sleeping bags and extra blankets as well as my bedding, and I took it all. 

About half way to the park, we started seeing a light snow on the ground,  but none was on the road and the temperature was  rising rapidly. But we did have to stop to allow a heard of bighorn sheep to climb off the highway and up a nearly vertical cliff. 

The only road hazards we encountered

We got to the park to find it almost empty and all camp sites free, saving us the grand total of $8.00 per night. ( I think I induced Elizabeth to come because of how inexpensive the trip would be but we found we have lots in common, even though she is young enough to be my granddaughter.) We decided on a site with plenty of room for our two tents and  and a huge western view.  We were soon set up and headed for the visitor center where we got information and watched a movie, before going down to the overlook by the visitor center. We were disappointed to find that the few trails were all about two miles. I drove back to camp while Elizabeth hiked the Rim Trail back.  We were both tired so took a nap. 

Then I was time to go exploring and walk to almost all the overlook points. We hoped for a lovely sunset, but the best one came after we got back to camp and had built a fire and were eating supper. 

The Canyon walls look mostly black in most places

This area had more color 

This is part of the Painted Canyon area and shows intrusions of newer rock

Our little sunset and Elizabeth's wonderful fire - I brought LOTS of wood

I got up early the following day and checked out a few places for light before coming back to camp and finding Elizabeth had gotten up and immediately gone hiking.  She suddenly appeared while I was sitting in the car getting warm. We again went out to see the overlooks in the morning light and then took a wonderful hike - put you will have to wait to find out about that.

Last picture as sun rose

The best time to take pictures are before and after the sun is present but you can't do all the canyon in those times

I  took way too many pictures of the canyon walls - they look unique and special in the camera
but it's hard to tell where I took them later. 

This is a long shot  in morning light - I thought a raptor might have had a nest above the white wash

The river is almost 2000 feet below us and we just heard the murmur of a tiny stream -
but the explorers were driven crazy by the constant roar of the big white water

Another view of the painted area

Shadows become a huge problem as the sun gets high - that blue patch in the bottom is the color of snow in the shade. 

 Elizabeth and I did two more hikes, and moved camp - stay tuned.