Day 9 (Durango!)

Day 9
June 30, 2006
Black Canyon of the Gunnison, CO to Durango, CO (122 miles)

The overnight was cool and dry at Black Canyon. After the kids were asleep, Frank and Sessy went outside and gazed at the millions of stars visible in the night sky in a place like this (8,200 feet elevation and no light pollution). We didn’t see the Milky Way, though, because there were a few clouds blocking portions of the sky.

Frank awoke before the rest of the family and took a 4-mile walk along the rim of the canyon. He stopped from time to time to snap photos of the canyon and vegetation in the low morning light.

After eating a simple breakfast in the trailer, we folded up and towed the trailer to the far end of the Rim Road and hiked the Warner trail (1.5 miles out and back). The halfway point was the end of a ridge where we had views in 3 directions, including the fruited plains outside of Montrose that are irrigated by the Gunnison via the water tunnel.

It was very hot in the full sun, and remarkably more comfortable in the shade. We drank all of the water we took with us. Wet is never a problem in the desert. Dry is the enemy. There is never enough water for life in most forms to flourish. Things are especially dry this year. One road flare tossed into the brush would surely cause a forest fire of major proportions. We noticed how intense the sun was given the nearly zero humidity and the high elevation. We were slightly winded by the elevation, too. At one point during the hike, Frank climbed out onto a high rock outcropping and Sessy snapped his picture. The awesome thing was that we had the whole trail to ourselves, just the four of us. This is the best kept secret in the National Park System. On the way back to our car, we let the kids tie their shirts on their heads to keep cool. They said it worked.

Forget what we said yesterday about the highway engineering of Phantom Canyon Road, U.S. Route 550 from Ouray to Silverton (the Million Dollar Highway) has to be the most accomplished piece of highway engineering is the county. The climb headed south out of Ouray up and over Red Mountain Pass is pulse quickening. We made most of the trip up and over it at 20 MPH in first gear, with the aroma of overheated brakes from vehicles going the other direction permeating the air. There were too many hairpin turns of more than 180 degrees to count. There were places where the grade had to be 10%. We encountered more than a dozen overheated vehicles along the roadside, but we didn’t have any problems.

We arrived at United Campground near Durango and set up in time to see two Silverton steam trains lumber by on their way back to the Durango Station. Each pulled about 10 cars that appeared to be packed with people. We have tickets to ride the train on Sunday.

The Animas River also runs right past our campsite and an irrigation canal, about 3 feet wide and flowing very swiftly, runs right through the campground. As we sat in our trailer we could hear the babbling water passing behind our site.