Black Canyon of the Gunnison wasn’t on my radar very long, like at all.  I knew it was a huge canyon and that’s it.  This was a good place for us to stop on our way to Florida, but not after a bit of a mishap of course.

I was in charge of navigation and put Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park into my phone.  All was well until we were on a dirt road that ended abruptly at a river.  There was nothing there for us, just a bunch of fly fisherman.  Well, great.  We only had so much light left and an hour drive to the visitors center and main south rim road.

Armed with definitely the right place this time, we set off and got there just in time.  We got to see the canyon in the regular light then we got to see it in the glow of the sunset with a storm brewing on the north rim.  This was the perfect time to see the canyon.  The pictures were a thousand times more interesting.

The only downside was that we didn’t have time to do more, like drive into the canyon, and it was freezing.  It was pretty windy and we weren’t totally prepared for that so there was a lot of running to and from the car.  All totally worth it, though.  I definitely want to go back to actually explore it more and go into it.  Maybe do some hikes along the top.

Helpful things:

• Go early in the morning or in the evening for better lighting.
• Give yourself a full day to either hike along the top and drive into the canyon, or do some on the north and south rim.
• The north rim is a two hour, suuuuuper pretty, totally worth it, drive.  We had to go that way to get to the Great Sand Dunes the next day, but didn’t get to see the north rim.
• Make sure you put the Black Canyon of the Gunnison Visitors Center into the GPS or who knows where you’ll end up.

Have you been to Black Canyon of the Gunnison?  What did you do there?  Did you like it?  Do you want to go?