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.

The Black Canyon of the Gunnison Fishing Trip

One thing I love about fly fishing is the beautiful setting.  Trout waters are located in the prettiest places on earth.  Places that are worth seeing in their own right, even if they didn’t provide great fly fishing.  In October I met Nick at one of these places, the Black Gorge of the Gunnison.  The Gorge itself is as deep as it is wide.  Majestic black rock walls keep getting more spectacular at each turn and vista.

Nick called and said he had a week vacation he needed to take and asked if I had any ideas.  I had been thinking I needed to take a fall trip and had researched some places.  One of these places was the Gunnison River that flows through the Black Canyon in Colorado. 

Nick and I both researched the area on line and came up with Pleasure Park as a good place to try. 

Delta is the closest city and I found us a hotel, Riverwood Inn, right on the banks of the Gunnison, at the confluence with the Uncompahgre River. 

I arrived at the hotel an hour before Nick was due to arrive.  After checking into the hotel I made my way down to the river.  By the time the Gunnison gets to Delta, it is a big river. 

Behind the hotel is a side channel that made it easier to fish.  After catching my first brown, Nick called and said he was delayed due to road construction. 

This gave me time to hike upstream a little further and by the time Nick arrived I had landed 4 trout.  This early success sure got me even more excited for the trip.

After unpacking the car, we drove to Pleasure Park to check it out.  It was a nice place to launch a boat but didn’t look easy to wade fish.  If you waded across the North Fork of the Gunnison River, which was possible because it was in the fall with lower water flow, you could follow a trail that would follow the south side of the River, somewhat.  From google maps it looked like the trail on the other side was better and followed the river further.  This was our first time here so we knew we would have to do some exploring.