Sun, Sep 16th - Ridgway, Montrose & Black Canyon of the Gunnison

We woke up to rain this morning, so we caught up on calling friends and family and doing a little laundry. By noon time it had cleared off, so we decided to head to Ridgway and have lunch at the True Grit Cafe, which had been recommended by friends as a good place to eat. There were lots of pictures of John Wayne on the walls and several local "cowboys" and "cowgirls" in there eating. Ridgway's park and surroundings were locations for the moies "Tre Grit", starrng John Wayne, and "How the West Was Won." Turned out there had been a rodeo nearby this morning! They knew just the place to eat! I had chili and Chuck a 1/2-lb burger--yum!

After a full belly, we headed north to Montrose so Chuck could get his monthly haircut! The weather was still nice, so we decided to head a little further north to the Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park. We drove thru the campground there and saw several of these mule deer checking out campsites also!

Then we went to the Visitor Center and watched the movie about the Canyon. We learned that this is a relatively new National Park--1999 and that this canyon was named "Black" because it is so deep, so sheer and so narrow that very little sunlight can penetrate it.


This picture shows the Gunnison River at the bottom of the gorge. Before this river was dammed up, it used to slam through the gorge in flood stage at 12,000 cubic feet per second with 2.75 milion-horsepower force, dramatically scouring the riverbed and eroding the canyon walls. You can see how it got so deep over a couple of million years.

Here's a look at the terrain around the top of the gorge. The nice weather quickly turned into a thunder storm with lots of lightning. We could see it hitting the mountains around us. It moved on pretty fast, so we hung around to see other parts of the canyon. Here's a rainbow that we saw.

This is a view of what they call the "Painted Wall. It also shows Warner Point, which is the steepest part of the gorge at 2,772 ft deep. Because the canyon is so dark, it's really hard to get good pictures.

Ridgway: http://www.ridgwaycolorado.com/

Montrose: http://www.visitmontrose.net/

Black Canyon: http://www.nps.gov/blca/