Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park

 We had never heard of this park before this trip. It became a park in 1999 but was a National Monument since 1933. We arrived Thursday afternoon ahead of the weather and did a great 3 mile hike finding many wildflowers...knowing it might snow and be cold the next day.


Really hard to get a picture showing the depth of this canyon. Day 1 not great light. We hiked down in the valley to explore before the snow in case the road closed the next day.
It is so hard to capture how deep this canyon is!


The park was overtaken by a wildfire last year. Some areas are still closed...but the wildflowers are persevering!!







It was a beautiful hike.


Coming back up the trail you can really see the devastation from last years fire.

Had to have one of our last Mexican meals as we will be leaving Colorado soon....

And yes the snow did come!!!

Woke to snow so had a slow start! Cornmeal pecan pancakes, bacon, and some of our California oranges!


we decided to start the day low again and wait for the snow to stop and melt above!
We chose perfectly.



A postcard picture.
Found a sweet little waterfall on a side fork.
So so beautiful! They didn't mind the snow!!



I climbed out to that outpost to see how deep the canyon is...humbling!! I actuallygot a smidge dizzy.
took a video to try to portray the vastness of this place...a mini Grand Canyon...but not so mini!



Just awe inspiring!




If you look at the bottom of many photos you will see the river.
This picture hopefully gives a sence of how deep this canyon is!!! 2722 ft! It is one of the narrowest and deepest canyons in North America!


The remnents of snow made the hills look like furrowed farmlands

Grilled so western steak, poblanos, fingerling potatoes with garlig olive oil and fresh cilantro!






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