Our third national park we stopped at was the
Black Canyon of the Gunnison.
(Our second park was Curecanti Recreational Area - it's mostly water recreation and when it's all frozen over there's not much to do but we did enjoy driving through - it was pretty.) The canyon is BEAUTIFUL and very interesting! We learned a lot by reading the signs at all of our stops along the road.
The first informational sign we learned from was about Pegmatite Dikes. This is what the sign said:
"Over a billion years ago, molten rock was squeezed into fissures forming the light-colored bands which thread Black Canyon's otherwise dark walls. You are standing on one of these bands. As the hot fluid slowly cooled and hardened, minerals formed into crystals. Look closely, you may recognize flecks of mica, feldspar, quartz and perhaps even garnet.
"These bands of lighter colored igneous rock - call pegmatite dikes - are more resistant to erosion than the dark gneisses (sounds like "nice-es") into which they intrude. Consequently, the pegmatite weathers more slowly than the gneise. The vertical position of the dikes here combined with their resistance to weathering has produced the fin-like appearance of parts of the canyon walls. You will see pegmatite at nearly every overlook.
"The pegmatite dike you see across the canyon nearly half a milk away is the same one you are standing on! Imagine the relentless cutting power of the Gunnison River."
Second interesting informational sign - Chasm View:
"Do you feel uneasy gazing into the canyon? The steep walls of Black Canyon range in depth from 2700 feet north of Warner Point to 1750 feet at the Narrows, a short distance upstream from here. The Narrows, between Pulpit Rock and Chasm View, is the shallowest and narrowest section in the monument. Here the canyon is less than a quarter-mile across.
"The Gunnison River has a very steep gradient. Within the monument, the river has an average fall of 95 feet per mile. This gives the river the energy needed to cut downward faster than other kinds or erosion can widen it. The words of an early surveyor reveal another view of this erosion:
""Hereto was unfolded view after vies of the most wonderful, the most thrilling of rock exposures, one vanishing from view only to be replaced by another still more imposing. A view which could easily be made into a Scottish Feudal Castle would be followed by another suggesting the wildest parts of imposing height and majestic proportions...""
Third interesting informational sign - The Painted Wall:
"At 2300 feet, Painted Wall is the highest cliff in Colorado. If the Empire State Building stood on the canyon floor, it would reach slightly more than halfway to the top of the cliff.
"The patterns that inspired the name Painted Wall were created more than a billion years ago when molten rock was squeezed (intruded) into fractures and joints in the existing rock, then cooled and hardened. Unlike a painting, these patterns are 3-dimensional. If you were to slice off a section of cliff, an entirely different pattern would be revealed."
I must admit that I think this has been one of the coolest national parks we have visited. While it was a lot of driving and the boys didn't want to get out of the car Dustin and I really enjoyed taking turns to go out to the view point.
