We visited the Black Canyon of the Gunnison located near Montrose, CO. It’s an immense canyon that was cut through hard metamorphic rock over millions of years producing very vertical canyon walls. The canyon is located on a mesa, so you have to drive up to get to the top of the canyon and see down into it.

It’s not as large as the Grand Canyon but is very impressive! There are several overlooks on the south rim where we visited and also on the north rim. It can be climbed by experienced rock climbers but of course we didn’t do that! There is no evidence that ancient natives lived in the canyon itself because of the type of rock – very hard metamorphic rock with shafts of lighter colored rock that was molten and squeezed up into cracks in the older metamorphic rock (not lava, but similar to it). As the river started running across the mesa and cutting into it, the hard rock caused the river to stay on it’s course cutting deeper and deeper rather than meandering and widening the canyon.

There is a narrow, very steep road (in many areas it’s got a 16% incline!) that goes to the dam built at the head of the canyon. It was built not to create a large lake but to divert water to the nearby valleys for irrigation. It has reduced the river somewhat but not too much.

It was very interesting to see this canyon cut into such hard rock!

Here are some pictures: