Black Canyon of the Gunnison Natl Park

June 28, 2011 – Black Canyon of Gunnison National Park

Here is another National Park you probably never heard of, but it is really an amazing Park. It is a mini version of the Grand Canyon, but in some ways more dramatic. It is about a half mile deep, with both sides of the canyon almost vertical., to the point where it is really inaccessible. Although people have lived on the rims of the gorge, there is no known history of any people inhabiting the gorge, including the Ute Indians that lived in the area for centuries.

Geologist Wallace Hansen wrote about Black Canyon – ‘Some are longer, some are deeper, some are narrower, and a few have walls as steep, but no other canyon in North America combines the depth, narrowness, sheerness and somber countenance of the Black Canyon of the Gunnison.’

The canyon is so dramatic because the Gunnison River that formed it over millions of years is an extremely fast moving river due to a radical drop in elevation, and a large volume of water in the river, about 12,000 cu ft of water per second at flood stage.

In just 48 miles, the Gunnison River loses more elevation than the Mississippi River does in it’s 1,500 mile trip from Minnesota to the Gulf of Mexico, which makes the Gunnison’s erosion power tremendous.

In 1909 a water diversion tunnel was dug to provide water for irrigation to farms in the nearby Uncompahgre Valley, which continues today, significantly reducing the erosive power of the river in the canyon.

Enough writing. Here are some pictures.

The reason it is called the Black Canyon is because very little light gets down to the river level, making the canyon seem imposing and dark.

But there are lots of pretty things up on the rim to look at too.

Scaredy-cat won’t get too close to the edge without a big rock to lean on…..

This rabbit ran across the trail in front of us and ‘hid’ in the bushes, but 'Stalker John' found him.

Depending on where you are in your day, some sights are more welcome than others.....

This robin and I had a whistling conversation for about 15-20 minutes while I went about taking other pictures. She kept responding to my whistles, or was it my imagination and it was me that was responding to her whistles??  I don’t know if I fooled her or she fooled me, but it was fun talking with her.

Imagine how long and tough the struggle was for this pine to survive on the rim with all the wind up there, knocking the tree over first as can be seen by the trunk on the ground, then twisting it into this gnarled form as it continues to win it’s struggle to grow upright.

Here is the tired couple after a long day in the Black Canyon of the Gunnison.

But on the way out of the Park I took a sunset picture…

… and about 3 minutes later we came across a doe right on the side of the road, and she was kind enough to pose for a picture.

Not one to let a good opportunity pass by, here is a combination of the two previous images.  I wish this was a genuine original image, but I did make the best of what I had with Photoshop…..

Not too Shabby..... even if it is contrived.

Canyonlands and Arches National Parks

June 26-27 – Canyonlands and Arches National Parks

Everywhere you look in Canyonlands National Park and Arches NP, your imagination sees faces, animals, birds, objects, people you know, people you don’t know, Indians, monkeys, fish, dogs, cartoon characters, etc., etc..

Take the following image as an example

You might want to click on the image to enlarge it. I can see many faces in here. A dogs face, a monkey’s face (one of the ape men in Star Wars), a cartoon face with a bulbous nose, a famous artist whose name I can’t recall (he has a small moustache and a pointy goatee beard – Van Dyke?? - or maybe it is Don Quixote..), and Teddy Roosevelt with a bushy moustache, eyebrows and head of hair.  I can also see a roaring dinosaur, the Lion from Lion King, and a slinky little Honda S2000.

And this is just one section of rock, of which there are thousands here.

How about some of these:

A gang of Indians and squaws with papooses babies (what the heck is the plural of papoose?), jugs of water to their left....   Or is it King Neptune and some Vikings with jugs of wine??

An Indian nose and an Italian Roman nose (or is it a Roaming nose?)

3 Gossiping Women (The Park Service named this one)

See if you can find anything in this formation.. 

Here are two structures that the Park Service calls ‘The Monitor and the Merrimac’

I added the structure in front by the bush, so this picture is called ‘The Monitor, the Merrimac and the Mama’.

These National Parks both have lots of balancing rocks too.

and a Balancing Babe….

and Babes balancing Rocks

There are many Arches in addition to the balancing rocks. Here is a balancing rock and two arches named ‘The Windows’ – North and South.

Here we are in front of ‘Landscape Arch’.

Within the last few years Landscape Arch lost a big slab of rock from the underside, just on the right side where it gets so skinny. A sign there says  that another chunk will likely fall again soon, possibly causing a break in the arch.  I don’t think I would walk out onto this arch, but they have everything blocked off to keep all the ‘daring ninnies’ with a death wish from doing so.

We thought the Park Service guide said the hike in to see this was .2 miles (2/10 of a mile) so we were expecting a short hike. Sylvia went in with her hiking boots but didn't put on socks for such a short hike. Not a good move, considering that the walk ended up being almost a mile in and the same back out. She ended up with a big blister on her heel. No more hiking for her for a while….

Approaching Windows North and South, viewed from the road..

These two arches may look like they are close together, but they are not as close as they look. I hiked up to Windows North while Sylvia stayed at the car, nursing her wounded heel.

A closer view of the North Arch, or maybe it is Turret Arch. Too confusing to remember.

....and the South Window to the right, as seen from in front of the North arch. The temperature was about 102 degrees, and even though the humidity was way down around 5% (Yes, five, not fifty) it was still way too hot for me to hike over to this one. Besides, I didn't want to leave Sylvia alone too long, sitting uncomfortably in the car with the A/C on..

Here is a perspective shot of the same arch. There are two people walking in front of the arch, where I have inserted the arrows. You probably need to click on the picture to enlarge it to be able to see the people.

Here we are in front of yet another famous arch – So many arches so little time – Sorry, I'm not certain of the name of this one, but it might be Sand Dune Arch or Skyline Arch.

Now for a Photoshop Software Sample ‘Before-After’ shot – Here is the ‘Before’ -

And the ‘After’ – Now you see her, now you don’t…..

A more dramatic view through the arch

There are lots of colors in the rocks due to the various minerals in the soil/rocks when they were formed millions of years ago.  Sylvia wants me to take a sample of the ‘Tuscan Sun Red’ color, just above the light green patch, to Lowes so we can get some paint for the kitchen wall above our pantry………??   I don’t know where she comes up with this stuff….

Found some more ‘Dead Tree Art’ – I saw a Sea Horse in this one.

Some pink blooming cactus

And a close-up

Here is a shot of the picnic table where we had lunch between two large rock structures. That is Sylvia at the table, just to the left of the arrow, bottom center of the picture. Sort of allows you understand just how small

and insignificant we humans are....

 

No Comment – You make your own determination what you want to see in this one…

Mesa Verde National Park - Cortez, CO

June 22 to 24 - Mesa Verde N.P - Probably the best examples of Cliff Dwellings of the Anasazi people. They inhabited this area from around 800-1000AD until about 1300AD. Initially they lived on the tops of the Mesas, dug shallow holes in the ground and built framework for huts they lived in. They also cultivated and grew crops, so this was the beginning of the end of nomads, since they had to stay where their gardens were.  Around 1100AD they started building the cliff dwellings under large cliff overhangs that were usually just under their gardens. They still had to climb to the top of the mesa to do their gardening and harvesting, but the cliff overhang and the dwellings gave them a much more stable temperatures and protection from the elements and unfriendly neighbors. Around 1300AD most of the Mesa Verde cliff dwellings were vacated, likely due to severe droughts causing their crops to fail, so it is thought that they moved on to more fertile areas. Descendants of the Anasazi are still all over the southwest, but they are now calling themselves Puebloans. I guess the Anasazi got a bad name for some reason...

Sylvia and I did not have drought problems with our food. The first night in Mesa Verde we had some real thick steaks. They were so thick we each could only eat half of the steak, so had them again the next night.

The foil packages held sliced Vidalia onions with lots of butter simmered over the coals for a long time, and a giant Yam that we had to share, again too big for one. We also had a great salad and some beverages.

Eat hearty. Tomorrow is a big day of hiking around the cliff dwellings.

Second Day - One short hike, and we decided to spend most of the day driving around to get the lay of the land and to get used to the high elevations again. Hiking is really difficult until you get accustomed to the altitude. Here is a view from the top of one of the Mesas.

The red arrow in the picture above points to a lake shown in the next image to give you an idea of scale.

There have been 3 rather large fires started by lightning from about 1990 to 2003 at Mesa Verde. The Nat Park Forest Service has decided that they will not fight the fires started naturally, and they only protect buildings or residences when a fire advances. It is felt that the areas need the fires to allow clearing of underbrush and to allow the renewal of the vegetation. Sylvia is concerned about what happens to the animals living in the affected areas, but I guess most of them can get out of the fire's way, and for those that don't, nothing goes to waste out here, so they will be food for survivors.  Here is a picture of some of the fire damage from the 2003 fire.

It doesn't appear that the larger bushes are returning too quickly although the underbrush flourishes.

.

There goes my imagination again. This branch reminded me of a ferret or something like that.

Last Day - Time to get serious about visiting the Cliff Dwellings. The largest one in the US is in Mesa Verde, and is named the Cliff Palace. The Rangers won't allow you to wander around here, but they give guided tours during which they give lots of good insight and information as to how the people lived here.

We stopped under an overhanging cliff and got to sit in the shade while our ranger talked about the Cliff Palace history for 15 minutes or so. The previous tour can be seen on the right side of the picture below, getting valuable information from their Ranger tour guide.  Click on the image to make it larger if you wish.

The climb down was not too tough, and the view was great, following Sylvia.

There are several hundred rooms in this site, most were small 4x10 ft or 8x10 ft rooms, which were used mostly for sleeping quarters.

The area above the dwellings right under the cliff overhang was primarily used for food storage as it was not accessible by foraging animals. You can see in the second picture that there were 3-4 floors built in.

Each family had a Kiva (a round living room) where they would gather to eat and have family get togethers.

Here is a picture of a Kiva without the roof.

 

The roof was a structure made of wood beams that rested on the top level of the round perimeter, was  covered with layers of adobe and more beams to strngthen it, so it could be walked on. In the center of the kiva roof was a hole, used for ventilation and to let the smoke out. The hole also held a ladder from the roof down to the floor.The only access to the early kivas was through this hole in the roof.  The kiva would fill up with smoke rapidly without ventilation, so the intake for fresh air is at the red arrow in the upper center of the above picture, and the air travelled down through the wall and came out of the hole just to the right of the lower red arrow. Just below the lower red arrow is an air baffle stone, that diverts the air as it is pulled down the ventilation shaft by the heat from the fire. The diverter stopped the air from hitting the fire directly, and made the air circulate around the room, more gently clearing out the hotter smokier air, which then went up and out through the hole in the roof.

Below is a picture of another cliff dwelling so you can see a couple kivas with their roofs installed and the ladders sticking out.

Here goes the great adventurer, venturing down into the kiva....

Lily liver said 'I'm not going down into that hole. No Way!!'

Here are some images of the inside of the kiva. You can see how the roof structure was built. There are even built in shelves for peace pipes, other ceremonial paraphenalia, and maybe Christmas or Hanukkah or Thanksgiving decorations. ??

I believe that when the Anasazi used them, the ladder leaned a little more because the fire pit would be where the bottom of the ladder is in this image.

So there you have it. More than you ever wanted to know about cliff dwelling life.

I told you the view is great when following Sylvia. Here we are climbing back up from Cliff Palace. It is a little hard to see, but look at the silly grin on the fellow following her up all the steps.

Here is a picture of us at an overlook for one of the dwellings.

Tomorrow we leave for Moab, Canyonlands N.P and Arches Natl Pk.