Colorado Vacation - Day 3

After the night in Gunnison, we stopped at the Mesa Creek area of Curecanti, and then headed to Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park.

I do wonder if our photography might have been better at sunrise/down or perhaps even at mid day.  The canyon is quiet narrow, and 2000' deep.

There were several opportunities to see the river below.  Hiking...  Unlike the Grand Canyon, there are not established trails to the river at Black Canyon due to its steep nature.  However, there are three possible "routes" on the south rim.  With a permit, you could make it to the river, but, it is extremely steep.  Could we have done it?  Probably.  But, it just wasn't worth the chance at this point in the trip.  We opted for the Oak Flat Trail which went partially into the canyon.

We did some of the rim drive stopping at overlooks.  At several points it was very easy to get right up to the edge and look down.

Having thought we might go to the bottom and spend more time in Gunnison, the Grand Mesa forest had only been a possible detour on the trip.  After having driven through this national forest and hiked on the Crag Crest Nature trail did we realize that it was a mandatory detour on the trip!

The hike was extremely well cut, and we went up on the east to do some of the crest.  Had we had more time, I would have gladly done the 10 mile loop.

Up on the crest, the trail got quite narrow in spots and wasn't for anyone afraid of heights.  You could see fields of golden aspen in the distance.  From the crest, there were 360 degree views.  However, on most of the trip, as you got to the higher elevations, there was a haze.  Several people commented on this and suspected it was from wildfires further west.   Haze or no haze - it was beautiful.