Wednesday, July 4, 2012
Cheri July-4-12
10:21 PM | 
Posted by
Sharp's Travels
Today started out with too many things going wrong.
We had tickets for the boat trip on the river down in the Black Canyon.
We got on our bike and started down our street and realized we forgot the camera. We turned around and went back after it. We then headed for Elk Creek Visitors Center to check on our tickets. They said we were just put on a list and didn’t need a ticket. We thought our tour boat left at 10:30am and they said “NO” 10 am. It was 9:10 am then and we had to drive 12 miles and descend down a steep DIRT road to the parking lot at Pine Creek Trail. From the parking area we had to walk down 232 stairs and do a ¾ mile walk along the old narrow gage railroad bed before reaching the boat dock. They suggested allowing 1 hour for the walk. Well, we did all this in ½ hour. We even had time to spare. WOW! Going back up will be at a much slower pace I assure you.
There were 41 people aboard our boat. Our guide explained all aspects of the canyon.
It is call Black Canyon because it is so deep, so sheer, and so narrow that very little sunlight can penetrate it. No other canyon in North America combines all of these features. The Gunnison River here in the Canyon drops an average of 96 ft per mile. It drops 480 ft in one two-mile stretch. At 2,700 feet deep and 48 miles long, it is an awesome site. The depth alone is enough to take your breath away. We were just amazed with each turn the boat made. We thoroughly enjoyed the boat ride and took our time climbing back out of the canyon (45 minutes to be exact).
Black Canyon was proclaimed a National Monument in 1933 but Congress made it a National Park in 1999.
We rode on up to the entrance of the park at the South Rim. They had a number of overlooks down into the canyon that would knock your socks off! When you look at the pictures they just don’t do justice to the beauty we saw. The Painted Wall was awesome.
Once again, we had to dig out our rain suits. We’d only stopped at 2 overlooks, when the rain came. We quickly put on our suits and took in 2 more overlooks before we decided to head back to the Visitors Center and wait out the storm. The wind blew hard and it poured. We checked out the Center and watched the movie on the Canyon and then decided to start for home.
We ran in and out of rain on our 60 mile trip home.
This is definitely a place we want to go back too.
To see pictures of the day click on this link https://picasaweb.google.com/sharpstravels then click on album: Black Canyon of Gunnison
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