Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, July 11, 1993 TAG: 9307110194
SECTION: TRAVEL PAGE: F-6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By Jean Cramer
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Colorado's Black Canyon of the Gunnison has a rough, rock-of-ages quality all its own. Old wrinkled earth remains ungroomed by civilization here. Some visitors like it this way. "We get two types of folks," says John Welch, superintendent of the national monument, "those wanting to look down between their toes into the abyss and those who won't go near the edge."
A third species prefers running the river below.
This somber slit between the Rocky Mountains and the western Colorado Plateau is so steep and so deep that it often appears bottomless. To fully appreciate its twists and turns and eerie grandeur, you must explore both rims because the narrow chasm reveals itself slowly.
Dark-stained gray walls, whose streaks of violet, orange and pink are muted by shadows, give the Black Canyon its name. The deepest 12-mile stretch of the 53-mile canyon has been designated a national monument.
Approaching the south rim, which is 15 miles northeast of the town of Montrose, the route traverses a science-fiction landscape of adobe-clay dunes. These formations are mancos shale deposits from an ancient seabed. At the visitor center a National Park Service ranger answers questions about the park and the 7.6-mile south rim drive, which ends at High Point (altitude 8,289 feet).
From 12 overlooks, if you don't mind feeling airborne, you can peer down dizzying cliffs at sliced off pinnacles and islands of granite, hanging valleys green with conifers, plunging side canyons, or the sparkling water a half mile below. You may even be lucky enough to look down on a golden eagle, peregrin falcon or flight of swallows coasting on updrafts below the rimrock.
Some viewpoints are a step away from your car. Others are reached by short nature trails leading through sagebrush, scrub oak, pinyon and juniper to the canyon edge. Dragon Point juts out across from Painted Wall, a 2,200-foot cliff etched with pinkish rock in the image of a serpent. Cedar Point Trail offers sublime vistas of both Painted Wall and the river.
The Gunnison River, which looks like a mere wisp from above, is 40 feet wide at The Narrows. It has been excavating this gorge for two million years and is still at it. Time and space come in big doses here.
More than a billion years ago, long before dinosaurs entered the scene, the earth began cooking up the metamorphic rock that now forms these canyon walls.
Millions of years later, as the nearby muntains were rising, deep underground pressures thrust up a block of hard rock, and eventually it was covered by sediment and volcanic debris from the erupting peaks. Seeking its way through this cluttered land, a free-flowing river crossed the uplift, penetrated its soft layers and continued obstinately channeling through the crystalline core.
Other forces shaped the canyon - weathering, sand and boulders washing down the streambed's steep incline. Erosion-resistant walls and the scour power of the river, descending 95 feet per mile through the monument, take most of the credit for its extreme narrowness, sheerness and depth.
There is no bridge across the deep gorge. The drive from rim to rim is approximately 80 miles, but it is worth the trip to experience the magnificent solitude of the north rim. A 16-mile gravel road runs from Crawford to a small ranger station, where information (if not always a ranger) is available.
The five-mile north rim drive edges the canyon's most vertical faces with five turnouts, one overlooking The Narrows.
From both rims, several mean-looking paths drop to the canyon floor. Hikers need a backcountry permit, tough shoes and an adequate water supply to descend these unmarked and precipitous routes. Expert climbers may be seen scaling some of the escarpments. Most visitors remain on top.
It's no surprise that the Ute Indians, who hunted in the area, stayed out of this frightful chasm. To cross it, they chose a gentler trail downstream from the monument.
Captain John Gunnison, exploring the river that bears his name for a transcontinental railroad route, detoured this obstacle. A later attempt to lay a Denver and Rio Grande Railroad track through it was only partially successful.
Then the river waved another challenge. In 1900, with plans for a water diversion tunnel, five surveyors set out in wood and canvas boats to explore the gorge, but they couldn't navigate The Narrows. A year later William Torrence and Abraham Lincoln Fellows succeeded, using a rubber mattress for a raft.
Though the Gunnison has since been changed by three dams above the monument, a 26-mile stretch running northwest through the Black Canyon is free-flowing and protected as a wild river. Floaters still challenge it.
Only kayakers may paddle through the monument, but downstream the Black Canyon's Gunnison Gorge is a class II-IV white water rafting and Gold Medal fishing stream.
Outfitters lead one- to four-day float trips in pursuit of rapids and trophy-size trout. Even if you are unfamiliar with (or could care less about) the mysteries of artificial lures and dry fly fishing, or the tricks of wild rainbows and browns, this adventure on the river can be addictive.
Drifting through quiet pools to the voices of the river and the canyon wrens, shifting your focus from water ouzels dipping their beaks in the ripples to the rainbow-colored, folded and fractured cliffs towering above, suddenly, as fast as you can shout, you are caught by swirling rapids and sent slaloming between boulders on a trip of a lifetime.
Access to the Gunnison Gorge Recreation Area has not been made too easy. A four-wheel drive vehicle is required to drive the sometimes slippery, clay roads in to the trailheads. Four moderately steep paths, including the old Ute trail, lead down to the stream. The easiest, Chukar, descends 560 vertical feet in one mile.
The Bureau of Land Management permits outfitters to launch two inflatable, non-motorized rafts a day. Hank Hotze of Gunnison River Expeditions, who initiated these guided trips, goes beyond Gold Medal Water regulations and insists on catch and release fishing. If you take this canyon and this river for granted, he won't invite you back.
From the rim of the Black Canyon, it's hard to imagine the close-up beauty of the Gunnison that carves it.
IF YOU PLAN TO GO TO THE CANYON\ Montrose, 260 miles (about a five-hour drive) southwest of Denver, calls itself the "home of the Black Canyon." Montrose County Airport is served by commuter airlines from Denver. For information about lodging call the Chamber of Commerce, (303)249-5515 or (800)873-0244.
By car, take I-70 west to Grand Junction and U.S. 50 south to Montrose. Or for a scenic byway, take I-70 as far as Glenwood Springs, Colorado 82 to Carbondale, and Colorado 133 south over McClure Pass to Hotchkiss. From this point either follow Colorado 92 south to Crawford and the north rim or go west on Colorado 92 to Delta, then continue south on U.S. 50 to Montrose and the south rim.
The visitor center to the Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Monument is on the south rim 15 miles northeast of Montrose via U.S. 50 and Colorado 347. National Park Service programs operate from mid-May to Sept. 1. Rim House, a small food-service and souvenir shop, is open during summer. The park's 102-site campground is near the beginning of the south rim drive.
To get to the north rim from Montrose, take U.S. 50 east through Curecanti National Recreation Area, cross Blue Mesa Dam and turn back west on Colorado 92 to Crawford. Or U.S. 50 west from Montrose to Delta and Colorado 92 east to Crawford. The county road from Crawford into the monument is closed in winter. The park service maintains 13 north rim campsites. For more information contact Superintendent, Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Monument, 2233 East Main, Suite A, Montrose, Colo. 81401; (303)249-7036.
Cramer Black Canyon sidebar 2
The Gunnison Gorge Recreation Area, including a 14-mile stretch of river below the monument boundary, is managed by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management. Access roads to the hiking trails are off U.S. 50 north of Montrose. Float trips end at the Gunnison River Pleasure Park at the junction of the Gunnison River and its North Fork.
For information about fishing and white water outfitters, pack horses, car shuttling, or independent rafting, contact the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, 2505 S. Townsend Ave., Montrose, Colo. 81401; (303)249-7791.
by CNB