Black Canyon of the Gunnison, Colorado

Ambling along two-lane U.S. Route 50 in the middle of Colorado, lost in a reverie, I suddenly saw a sign announcing Black Canyon of the Gunnison just ahead. That's something I should see, I thought. I stopped at a small store at the intersection and learned that the Black Canyon lay at the end of a six-mile, twisty and steep road up the mountain, and that there is a fifteen dollar charge to get into the national park. I was back in the parking lot, essentially deciding to just move on down Route 50 when a woman, unloading a bicycle from a van, noticed my Maryland licence plate. "What part of Maryland are you from?" she asked. When I told her, she explained that she was originally from Annapolis but that she and her husband now live in Colorado. She wanted to know if I was planning to see the Black Canyon. I told her that I wasn't sure. Hearing this, she launched into a glowing and adamant spiel about the attributes of the Black Canyon that would have made the National Park Service PR department proud. After that I really had no choice. Up the six-mile road I went, and was rewarded with utter amazement at the natural wonder that lay before, or rather beneath, me.





Once you've driven up onto a plateau you suddenly encounter a great gash in the earth. In many places it is relatively narrow and it's very deep -- 2,722 feet at its lowest point. It was carved over many millions of years by the raging Gunnison River which can be seen snaking along at the bottom of the canyon. The walls are mostly sheer, plunging virtually straight down as you stand at the various lookout points along an 8-mile scenic drive along the south rim. The narrowness of the canyon and its great depth prevent sunlight from reaching very far down into the canyon, leaving much of the walls in shadow. Thus the name "Black" Canyon.

The canyon has an interesting geological past. You can read about it here if you wish.

As with so many places in the west, you are confronted at Black Canyon with an inability to grapple with the sense of scale. The thing you are looking at is so huge and distances are so vast, there's no real frame of reference. You are looking at something in front of you -- a rock formation, a mountain, the depths of a canyon -- and you know it's big, but how big? It seems almost as if you can reach out and touch it. But how far away is it? Five hundred feet? A mile? Fifty miles? Photographs really can't convey this phenomenon of not being able to grasp size. But here are some pictures anyway:







This photographer just had to get the perfect angle ...



The joy of flight ...



As I was nearing the last of the string of overlooks enthralled by all that I was seeing, I heard a cheerful voice call out, "Well, how do you like it?" It was the exuberant bicyclist who had encouraged my journey up the mountain. She had pedalled all the way up the steep and winding road. "It's fantastic," I replied. She just smiled and nodded and sped on in her own reverie.