The Black Canyon of Gunnison
The Black Canyon, the name sounds more like a metal band my friends would have seen over a long weekend in college than a national park, but this place rocks just as hard as any band (pun intended). We left Denver in the late afternoon after we signed our first home over to a nice lady from Seattle. We hit the road hooting and hollering at the freedom of our current situation. There are really two ways to look at our current situation, we are homeless and jobless (glass half empty), or for the first time since youth we are 100% debt free with the world ahead of us.
With Denver in the rear view mirror we hop on south CO 285 hoping to get to as close to the park as we can before the sun goes down. We get as far as The Blue Mesa Reservoir, a mere 47 miles from the park before stopping to sleep. We pulled into a campsite in the dead of night only to be rewarded with an amazing view of the sunrise over the lake in the morning. Surprisingly the campsite was empty with the exception of a few scattered RVs and the camp host who had one of the most elaborate campsites I’ve ever seen complete with hanging plants, garden gnomes, and a hand painted sign reassuring us that “Jesus Loves You.”
By 8:am the next day we are at the entrance of the park flashing our national park pass. We are the only car in sight. Our planning was minimal so we opted for the scenic drive and a series of short hikes along the rim over a trip to the floor of the canyon. The canyon is deep and dark and full of mystery. The bottom is out of view from most view points peaking my curiosity as to what kind of creatures call the canyon bottom home. The canyon's name owes itself to the fact that parts of the gorge only receive 33 minutes of sunlight a day, according to Images of America: The Black Canyon of the Gunnison. In the book, author Duane Vandenbusche states, "Several canyons of the American West are longer and some are deeper, but none combines the depth, sheerness, narrowness, darkness, and dread of the Black Canyon."
