Black Canyon of the Gunnison: The Gorge That Nobody Could Get Into

The Black Canyon of the Gunnison is not particularly well-known compared to the Grand Canyon, and it is considerably harder to reach, which is part of the point. The inner gorge drops two thousand two hundred fifty feet through Precambrian rock that is one point seven billion years old, some of the oldest exposed stone in North America. In some sections of the canyon, the walls are so close and so high that the bottom receives only thirty minutes of direct sunlight per day. The name comes from the darkness. The canyon is not black; the shadow makes it black.

The canyon had a reputation, among the few people who knew about it, as impassable. The Gunnison River through the inner gorge is technically demanding even now, with sections of Class Five whitewater above waterfalls, and the canyon walls offer no route out. The first documented descent of the inner gorge was in nineteen hundred one, by a survey party from the Gunnison Tunnel project, which was looking for a route to bring irrigation water to the Uncompahgre Valley east of Montrose. The surveyors spent about ten days inside the canyon. Their published account described it as one of the most difficult pieces of terrain they had encountered in any Western survey.

They determined the canyon was impassable for a tunnel. The Gunnison Tunnel was eventually bored through the canyon's rim instead, completed in nineteen oh nine.

The park was established as a national monument in nineteen thirty-three and redesignated a national park in nineteen ninety-nine. The south rim, which is accessible by road, offers views straight down into the gorge without any of the descent. Several of those viewpoints have no barriers between the visitor and a two-thousand-foot drop. This is considered part of the experience.