The Black Canyon – Deepest canyon created by the Lord in North America

July 15 – Tuesday (Sunny, Hot, 90’s…predictably boring)

After leaving our campsite in Ouray, we came out of the mountains and found the entrance to Black Canyon National Park. It was a beautiful day. As I stated before, this park was only a monument like White Sands and Four Corners until Bill Clinton came here and decided it should get more funding and thre should be more land tha should be set aside for preservation. In 1999 he made it a National Park. We spoke to a local who owned a souvenir/gift shop. You’d think he would be thrilled with the prospect of many new tourists but he wasn’t. He liked the small number of visitors that came each year and knew that with the National Park status, that area would change forever. As we drove in, we noticed the difference from the grand canyon. Not as wide but plenty deep.

Pictures can not portray depth of field that well. The walls were not made of the same stone that Grand Canyon as made of it was hard black looking granite. I always get a kick out of science explanation of age of rock. Most signs attributed this canyon to 500 million years ago. I just like to give the Lord the glory and think about how awesome He is and the mighty power He must have to make such a spectacle. Whether it’s due to the Gunnison River or His wondrous ability to carve and mold His greatness is demonstrated in His creation, especially man.

There are several views and vistas such as Gunnison Point, Kneeling Camel, Rim House, Dragon Point, Sunset View, etc. that give different views to the canyon. I snapped some photos.

Notice in the picture above that one side of this part of the canyon is sloping and green and the other side steep and barren. Rangers tell us it is due to the sun. The east side of the basin is exposed to the sun more than the west making it more lush and full of trees. One special formation is the painted wall view. From the surface it looks like someone painted the wall, but it is really different layers of rock from the formation of the canyon wall. If you were to slice through the wall vertically, the look of the painted stripes would take on a new pattern because it is actually a three dimensional strata of rock. The canyon at this point is the deepest in North America. The picture shows what it would look like if the Empire State Building was placed in the canyon. The canyon wall is actually 2300 feet high.

We hiked into one last view which was about 2 miles round trip. It was the Warner Point trail. We thought it would be a quick walk and did not bring enough water. As a Boy Scout leader, I knew better but went anyway. It was steep and arduous. Thankfully for us some folks at the point had extra water and they offered us some. We had a chance to witness to them about Christ. They listened but declined extensive discussion. That is OK…the seed was planted. The view actually was not worth the walk but along the trail there were stopping points that Mr. Warner had taken the time to describe. One thing we read about was the Juniper tree and its ability to withstand the dry, arid region. It ability to twist and the type of bark allowed it to resist death in such an arid place. The berries become the favorite of many wild animals and reptiles.
We made it back to the RV and upon leaving stopped to buy some souvenirs. As I was leaving the RV to enter the store, there was a lady smoking a cigarette. She was just finishing and threw the lit remains on the ground. I guess the world as some see it is an ashtray or garbage pit. What irked me was that throughout the park and for the past several days, we had seen Smoky the Bear signs indicating that the chance of forest fires was very very high. When asked to extinguish the cigarette I was told to mind my own business that she was a local. This had a profound effect on me in that I thought about how we take things for granted when we live in an area and forget about our surroundings and how in a moment it could be destroyed by our stupidity. We left and headed for our next destination which will be Arches National Park… in Arizona…again. Because of darkness, we overnighted at a RV park in Fruita Colorado, a small town near the Arizona border.