Sheep & Hawk Shopping

Colorado Travelog #29
Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park - Thursday, 7 Jul 2022, 12:30pm

Oh, one other thing before we leave this part of the Black Canyon park.... I've mentioned before that we (almost) always stop by park visitors centers not just for info about hiking and conditions but to see if they have any cool merch. For example, when we were at Colorado National Monument a few days ago we saw a Lego-like bighorn sheep. We decided not to buy it and, frankly, we regretted that starting only a few hours later. Well, today at Black Canyon we had our second chance.



...And not only did they have the snap-together bighorn sheep, they had a peregrine falcon, too!

For now these boxes are in a tote bag in the back seat of our truck. We'll see when we have time to put them together... which won't be until sometime after we get home a few days from now.

Curecanti National Recreation Area

Colorado Travelog #30
Cimarron, CO - Thursday, 7 Jul 2022, 3pm

Although we left Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park just after noon today after a bunch of short hikes this morning we're not done with it. We left the south rim. We're driving around to the north rim! The canyon is so deep this is one of those cases where the opposite rims are a few hundred meters apart yet a 2½ hour drive around.

The drive today took even longer than that as there are several miles of road construction on US 50. (Yes, that US 50, "The Loneliest Road in America".) We were stopped several times to allow crews and machines to do their work. "We should have gone the other way around," I fumed. But the other way around wouldn't have brought us through Curecanti National Recreation Area. We turned adversity to serendipity as we stopped at one of the area's vista points and hiked around a bit.



A National Recreation Area is a different designation than a National Park. It's lower on the protection scale and more generous on the access scale. That's why, e.g., you see a power boat on the water in the picture above.

Geology-wise, it's basically the same place as Black Canyon of the Gunnison. The Gunnison River flows through narrow, steep canyons over 1,000' feet deep.



There's more water up here in this part of the canyon because it's controlled by dams. The dams are managed to maintain this part of the canyon as a reservoir. About 5 miles upstream, past one of the dams, the canyon is much lower and wider, allowing easy access to the river.

Now it's pedal-to-the-metal again to get to Black Canyon of the Gunnison's north rim before the light fades. Update: see how it turns out!

Taking it Easy this Weekend

We're taking it easy this weekend. That's something we do at least once every few weekends. This is one when we deserve it. After being on the road all of the week before this past one, driving and hiking in Colorado, we're glad to have a few days of just staying put.

Today we slept in a little late, "a little late" being just after 8am, frittered in the morning, got lunch and went shopping, relaxed in the afternoon, then had a friend over in the evening. Tomorrow will be more of the same. Hawk's going to a movie in the morning while I'll try to do some cleaning around the house, then we'll have friends over in the afternoon.

Next weekend? Oh, next weekend we'll likely be out hiking again. But for now it's nice not to have big plans.