Colorado National Monument to Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park
This morning we got a relatively early start leaving the beautiful Colorado National Monument. We had about a 20 mile drive in the park and every overlook provided stunning new scenery. We kept thinking we had seen the most impressive scenery we could see.
But, once again, we are in at another place of stunning, breathtaking beauty.
And getting here was quite the experience.
First of all, we came into the town of Delta, Colorado. I saw a sign for a museum and turned around to go back to it. It was hard to find, even with the signs. As we followed the signs we came across a City recreation complex – and what a complex. A really nice facility, with a full size pool, racquetball courts (being used), weight room(s), gymnasium, etc. All in a beautiful town park setting.
Both Clara and I took advantage of the pool. We forgot about the museum. Clara learned from some of the ladies that there was a genuine Mexican restaurant in town, so off we went to it after the workout. And there was a laundromat around the corner, so we accomplished two things at once.
Then a very interesting drive to our current location.
The GPS took us on some back (dirt) roads. The further we went, the more concerned we got that we were not going to find the North Rim Campground. After miles of dirt roads, we finally came upon a couple of signs, and then a ranger station.
When I talked to the Ranger, he said “We don't get big rigs like yours back here”. A big red flag. He told us to go on in to the campground and if we could find a spot, we could stay. If not, we could camp anywhere we wanted to around the area. Just find a place and stop.
We eventually found a spot that we could get into and level the motorhome enough to be usable.
Now, where were we.
After we set up, I found a trail head and walked down it to the “Chasm View”. As I approached it, I got a feeling I was going to see something special. And it was.
When I got to the overlook (in this case it was literally an overlook – looking straight down), the vastness and depth of the canyon literally took my breath away. I was looking straight down into a canyon that was one half mile deep – straight down!!! I have never seen anything like it. A canyon only a few hundred feet wide and one half mile deep.
After I recovered, I came back to the motorhome and had a good drink.
There are other campers, so I got out and started talking to them. It turns out that they (and other groups of campers here) are professional guides taking a break from work. They had hiked down to the bottom of the canyon twice today and climbed the sheer rock wall back up – just for fun.
It turns out that there was a married couple and a friend. Both of the guys and gal that are married are professional guides. They do guided trips all over the world for clients. The guy had guided trips to Antarctica for the past ten years, in addition to trip to Alaska and and Asia. They were a fascinating group of people, individually and collectively (http://mountain-guide.blogspot.com). They stopped by the RV to meet Clara and stayed a while.
Another fascinating day!!
No comments:
Post a Comment