Colorado 2002Part 2: Black Canyon of the Gunnison, Ouray
We headed back into town and wandered along the river bank (collecting, of course) while we waited for the Timberline Deli to open. They make GREAT sandwiches (their avocado delight is a favorite). They packed us a lunch to go and we set off for the "excitement" of the Million Dollar Highway (the stretch of US Hwy 550 between Ouray and Silverton).
Click here to continue to Silverton. . . . Click here to return to the Colorado index |
It's too bad that
most of the high altitude and desert type plants won't
grow in Iowa! Highway 92 weaves along the north edge of the Black
Canyon of the Gunnison. We stopped frequently to enjoy the
spectacular
views (and do a little
bit of rock collecting). To the left is one of our first views
of the San Juan Mountains; on the right is a view of the
Cimmaron River
down in the canyon.
We
crossed over to the south side at US Hwy 50 and drove up to
the Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park. It's
a very nice park -
small and not easily accessible, so not crowded
(compared to, e.g., Rocky Mountain National Park where there are no
parking
places after about 9 AM) The views
across and into the canyon are spectacular. Here are just a couple -
the one to the right is called the "painted wall"
and the viewing spot is known as "Dragon Point," though some of us
thought it looked more like a serpent. 
Once
again, we are reminded that this is truly "God's Country." Who else
could create a "bonsai" as perfect as this tree on the left? We hiked around the area
for a couple of hours enjoying the perfect rock gardens,
beautiful flowering cacti and wonderful, gnarled old trees sculpted by
the Master. We took advantage of the
park concessionaire to refresh with ice cream cones before heading off
for Ouray.
We had a pretty fancy dinner at Piñons in Ouray then just browsed Main
Street (See picture on the right. How's that for a view
to wake up to? Ouray is pretty closed in by mountains on all sides.) We
passed the "Handmade Truffles and Cyber Cafe."
That made John laugh - he said something like "Chocolate and computers,
what else could a woman want?" But
I resisted the temptation on both counts. 
Although we liked the idea
of the Hot Springs Pool, we discovered it
was much like any other public swimming pool and appeared too full of
splashy kids for us to pay a visit.
The
next morning, after a great
breakfast at Papillion Bakery, we visited the
Cascade Falls (left) on the north end of town. I think there are 7
cascades all together, we were at the bottom.
It's a nice walk back to the falls; we crossed the stream a couple
times, of course picking up rocks here and there!
Box Canyon Falls (right) is at the south end of town. They have
actually built a stairway that goes about a third of
the way up so the hike to the top wasn't too bad. As advertised, the
falls and Canyon Creek (off of the Uncompahgre River) are "boxed" into
a narrow canyon so the effect is quite startling. This picture was
taken from the bottom. From the top you can't see the
falls but you do get a great view of the town. 
We took our time -
partly by necessity due to nature of the road - can you even find the road in the picture to the
left? While it is hard surfaced and has real lines on it, is very
twisty and steep and there are no guard rails. It was
explained to us in Silverton that they can't put guard rails up because
they have to keep the road open all winter and
there's no place to dump the snow except over the side of the road! In
any case, we weren't in a hurry and stopped for
lunch at the Bear Creek Trailhead (we only walked a short way up to
find a nice lunch spot) and at several other scenic places (like this
view of Red Mountain on the right).
The first order of business when we got to Silverton that afternoon was
the Laundromat! But even that wasn't boring - we
met a German physician (he says they don't call them "Doctors" there) who
lives and works in Switzerland. He was on a 4 week
holiday in the southwest US, doing lots of hiking. Silverton is a small
town; we met him again several times while we were
there and shared stories of where we'd been hiking, and enjoyed some
good political conversation as well.