The Black Canyon Tour and Fishing

The next morning we headed toward the Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park.  Although I knew it was a deep gorge that the river flowed through and would look spectacular, I had no idea of the immensity and number of evermore spectacular views there would be.  

At the park entrance you are given a map of the park and instructed that if you want to drive down to the river you take the super steep road to the right.  

To go to the visitor’s center and to tour the park, you go straight.  

We thought we would quickly check out the visitors center and a view or two and quickly be headed down to fish the river. 

Wow, was I in for a big surprise. This turned out to be the highlight of the whole trip.  

After seeing the first couple of awe inspiring views, we knew we needed to take the whole tour, especially the sights recommended by the Park Rangers, like Painted Wall.  

It seemed each new vista was impossibly more breath taking than the last. The rugged sheer cliffs of black granite with spires even steeper and more crazy than the previous were truly astounding.

Finally after being satisfied we’d seen all the sights of the park, we put the SUV into low gear and headed down the steep road to the river.  We started out going upstream and found a good access spot where we could follow a trail down to the river were there was widening bank.  

Would you believe the first cast produced a nice rainbow? We continued fishing upstream a bit into the fast riffles and then downstream into the deeper quiet pools.  

Then we headed downstream as far as the trail would take us and we were blocked by a vertical cliff in deep water.  This was fun fishing, Nick caught a big rainbow, but all in all, the fishing was slow. 

But, just being inside the canyon itself was spectacular, this time looking upwards at the jagged cliffs on each side of the river.