Black Canyon (of the Gunnison) National Park

April 17, 2003

Black Canyon National Park (its actual name is above and is very wordy to my mind) sits about 15 miles east of Montrose, Colorado, off of US Highway 50. Practically in the middle of nowhwere. The park itself isn't very big. It is, essentially, a large canyon that has the Gunnison River flowing thru it. Sounds like some other National Parks (Grand Canyon has the Colorado, Canyonlands has the Green, Yosemite has the Merced, and so on).

The Black Canyon is actually classified as a gorge. Personally, I don't know the difference between a canyon and a gorge. I pulled out my handy, dandy Webster's New World Dictionary, published 1994, and here is what it says each is:

• Canyon: a long, narrow valley between high cliffs, often with a stream flowing through it
• Gorge: (in this instance, as gorge can mean many different things, not least to eat "gluttonously") a deep, narrow pass between steep heights

Not illuminating, at least not to me. The only difference seems to be the river or lack thereof. In the case of Black Canyon, there is a river (the aforementioned Gunnison River). According to all I saw and read, it has taken approximately 2 million years to create the Black Canyon to its present depth of about 2,500 feet (this is an average).

In 1933, the Black Canyon became a National Monument, and there it stayed until 1999, when it was upgraded to a National Park. Congress also made some of the land adjacent to the newly designated Park as a wilderness area. I viewed the Black Canyon from the rim (I only allocated a few hours for this visit), but you can also drive down to the river if you so choose. A lot of people do this, but not in April as it is very cold still.

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