Today we hiked to the bottom of Black Canyon of the Gunnison and back up again, via to Gunnison Route, which apparently is the easiest, although still very challenging. It was just over a mile each way, with 1800 ft elevation loss and gain each way and took us about 1 hour and 40 minutes each way. It was STEEP! Any steeper and I think we'd have to be tied in. At the bottom it was peaceful with the Gunnison River flowing and a few others down there fishing.
This part was so steep, the park service had a chain to assist your ascent and descent. We brought our leather works gloves to prevent hand injuries.
Not a bad lunch spot.
A much deserved rest on our lunch rock before we head back up. It only hailed for about 5 minutes on the way up. We made it without serious event, I only got one more injury, a left forearm bruise to match my right. We both got serious workouts of our quads from the way down and hammys from the way up. Instead of staying in this rustic spot without cell service or wifi again tonight, since we finished up our hike at 2:30, we get a quick shower (much needed after 3 days) in our travel trailer and head down to Ouray. Ryan was in Ouray once before when he was 14 on a school trip. They have hot springs there? Sounds like a perfect spot to recover our sore muscles.
After our hot springs soak, we met the most feisty, cantankerous 50 something man who owned this brewpub. He was pretty entertaining and we learned all about Ouray town history in this pub with wooden paneling, a wood burning stove about the size of our travel trailer.
Curious colors in the sky this evening as we trek it on back to our travel trailer for some dinner, but first Ryan tried to kill our toaster oven by pre-heating it with plastic wrapper inside. There goes the smoke detector!
Total Miles: 51
Gas: $47.20
Near Miss: Don't leave your keys on the hood of your car. If you do, notice before you get on the highway and bring them inside(thank goodness we did).
Special thanks: Jan and Dale Troyer for the recommendation to visit the Black Canyon, a very cool place.
Ryan, that whole bit about leaving plastic wrap on food in toaster oven-that's why we ended up with instructions on pop tarts that wrapper should be removed! Saran Wrap will now have warning labels soon because they'll read about you in this blog!
ReplyDeleteHope you two sore kids continue soaking up the beauty! Happy birthday Ryan, still a kid. Show all those other 37 year olds what you got as you two conquer 'out west'
Don't ask why my previous comment which I deleted states 'Irene hughes' as author, story for another day :)
Erin hughes
Ha! So it was actually because I store one of the little shelves that go in the toaster it its plastic wrap inside the toaster (because it seemed to be a good place to store it) Not so much...
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