Everybody took a good breakfast, after our “healthy” dinner. It was still -3 Celsius (30F), therefore hats and gloves and Vaseline on our chapped lips,… Just a 30 min drive to Black Canyon National Park. And indeed the rocks are black and very steep and a narrow canyon.
Behind visitor center we could see Gunnison View Point. Oh boy, oh boy was the Gunnison river so deep down, like 2,000ft deep ….
In Black Canyon we drove the 7 mile South Rim scenic drive. It is truly driving on a rim. Lucky our driver drove very slow; he didn’t like so much that rim ….
Our first stop was Pulpit Rock overview.
Second stop at Painted Wall, the highest drop in Colorado.
Third stop along the South Rim drive was Cedar Point. There we saw many cedar trees in beautiful artistic forms.
End of the drive was High Point where we did the walk to Warner Point. This was an easy walk on the rim, with on the right Black Canyon and on the left the Vernal Mesa. We think that this was a dessert and many years ago the settlers drilled a tunnel to deviate the Gunnison river to this valley and now it’s farmers land.
This walk was also a lesson about the trees: Juniper, Piñón, etc … in 1996 a lighting striked the area and many trees were burned leaving now black forms behind.
And we had a lovely picnic there on High Point. José had adapted music (like El Condor Pasa) to enjoy the view, the apple and cookie and the company.
As we had a long drive, we left early. Dany decided to take the scenic roads, what a panoramic views we had along the road. Hwy 50
We also did the Monarch Pass and went to 11,312ft high.
Our coffee stop was in Gunnison at a real roasted coffee place.
We also saw from far away fires in the Colorado woods with helicopter
We finished the day with a good steak at the Longhorn.
2019canyontrip 