Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park

One of the main destinations of this trip was to visit the Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park.  The day was now here and off we all go.  After our breakfast and morning coffee a short drive to the park entrance was awaiting.  Of course, once that Black Canyon of the Gunnison Park sign came into view, stopping was mandatory.  Picture time!  I have a little mindset that this might be the park of our annual Christmas Card, so smile with teeth.  With our cameras in tow, we explored the south canyon rim and stopped at most if not all the pull offs along the 7-mile drive to the end. We did a few of the short walks out to the viewpoints that reveal amazing views of this deep canyon. The Gunnison River runs through this canyon 2000 feet below and you can still hear the roar of the river from the overlooks above. At one of the viewpoints, we talked to a guy that said he saw a bear just a few minutes before we arrived. He had pictures to prove it but we did not see the bear, yet. At the next stop we again heard that someone else just saw a bear, did we bring the bear spray? We ended up seeing that bear walking across the valley from where we were, close enough to see but far enough away. We made our way out to the very end at High Point overlook and took a quick stroll around. This was about a mile hike and if it hadn’t been nearly 100 degrees we might have considered. High Point overlook is where everyone comes out in the evening to see the sun set over the canyon and valley below. We did not see this but maybe in the future we can do this. Along the way back we stopped at the visitor center to get a few souvenirs to remember the trip. But they were out of the collector coins that I like to get.