Day-14 Jul-21-09

Today we headed out for a pretty short loop around the Black Canyon of the Gunnison. We covered about 180 miles in roughly 7 hours, with stops.

Today's ride put the trip odometer just over the 4000 mile mark.

As we made our way up around the northern rim of the Black Canyon, we ran into a little hornet issue. At one point we pulled over at a scenic overlook, and I noticed a hornet on the seat between Lennie's legs as she was climbing off the bike. I was able to 'flick' it of the seat with no harm done, and we moved on. Another few miles down the road, Lennie had another hornet get lodged between her arm and the arm rest on the bike. Needless to say, the hornet was not happy, and decided to let her know. You can see the sting location starting to swell in the picture below. Good thing Lennie is not allergic to stings. The whole episode made me think twice about the fact that I was riding in shorts :(

In yesterday's blog, I posted a picture of a sign about open range cattle. Below is another item that we have seen hundreds of times on this trip, it is a cattle grate. They put these in the road, to control where the open range cattle travel. Evidently, the cattle do not like having their hooves drop down into the open grates, so they don't cross. Lennie has been trying to get a photo of the grates as we ride, but has always been to slow on the shutter, until today! They are a bit of a nuisance to ride over at speed.

Once we reached the south rim of the Black Canyon, we entered the actual park area. The Black Canyon of the Gunnison is one of 4 National Parks in Colorado. With our visit here, we have now been to 3 of the 4 parks (Rocky Mountain National Park, Mesa Verde National Park, and Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park), the only one we have not visited is the Great Sand Dunes National Park, which became a National Park in 2004. We may stop at that park on the way to Colorado Springs tomorrow.

This park, on the south rim, runs along roughly 12 miles of the 50 mile long Gunnison River Canyon. The Gunnison River drops an average of 43 feet per mile through the entire canyon, making it one of the steepest mountain descents in North America. For comparison, the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon, drops an average of 7.5 feet per mile. The greatest descent of the Gunnison River occurs within the park at Chasm View, dropping 240 feet per mile. The canyon is named the Black Canyon due to the steepness of it's sides, which makes it difficult for sunlight to penetrate very far down into the canyon. As a result, the canyon walls are often in shadow, causing the rock walls to appear black. At its narrowest point the canyon is only 40 feet across.

One of the more dramatic areas of the canyon, is an area called Painted Wall. The coloring and texture of canyon face is pretty dramatic. Below are a few photos of the Painted Wall.

To give you a little perspective, if you look at the top of the ridge on the right, you will notice it is covered in green, those are fully grown trees. Compare the height of that green coverage to the depth of the canyon !

Below is a photo looking straight down from the rim. The canyon at this point is roughly 2500 feet deep, and pretty narrow.

There is one access road in the park, which makes it's way from the south rim down to the river bed. The road descends 2500 feet in about 3 miles, giving the roadway about a 16% grade!! The ride down is pretty easy, as long as you stay in a lower gear to take advantage of engine braking, and you don't overheat your disc brakes. The ride up is a little more difficult, as you need to keep your speed up to negotiate the steep turns without stalling. You also need to keep an eye on the engine temperature, as things can get pretty hot climbing a grade this steep for this distance. Or, you can just go in a car, and not worry about all this crap :)

Below are a couple of shots looking up from the river bed in the canyon.

Tomorrow we make our way over to Colorado Springs. This will be the starting point for our 3 day trek back home :(

I have a route put together that includes a couple high elevation mountain passes, but we are unsure about what else we want to try to fit in the day. We may try to make a run up Pike's Peak, which summits at above the 14,000 foot mark. Most of the road above the first 7 miles is dirt, but I have heard that is relatively bike friendly. I heard that before, about other roads too :) Our other choice, is to head farther south, and visit the Great Sand Dunes National Park, which would allow us to 'tick' off all 4 National Parks in Colorado on this visit.

Hmmm, the choices are difficult, time to get some rest and 'sleep on it'.