Black Canyon of the Gunnison is Terrifying! [Montrose, Colorado] (2022) 

I just got back from a 7-day trip to CO with my 17 yr old son and this park really was underrated. We hiked the Oak Flat Loop Trail and there were a few spots that were very scary. A very rewarding hike though.

I went on vacation here years back with my kids. I got some serious vertigo at the top... still had a good time and would highly recommend

When I was a teenager we used to go up there and get drunk and stoned, then walk out onto scary ledges 2300 feet above the river. The narrow gauge train at ~18:15 used to sit in Montrose next to the chamber of commerce. I've crawled all over that train-it was our local jungle gym. And I got to go inside of Morrow Point Dam once. There was an engineer there and a friend and I asked him if we could look around inside. When I told him my father was retired from the Bureau of Reclamation, he said, "Sure!" and showed us the guts of the operation. I'll never forget that.

I think the damn and lake that you were at was Morrow Point. There's a much bigger one up closer to Gunnison called Blue Mesa Reservoir. If you went past Sapinero you were next to Blue Mesa Reservoir. I'm a bit of an old timer, and I remember being on the last train from Gunnison to Montrose. If you get a real good photo imagery map such as Google Earth, you can still see where the old railroad bed disappears into the lake. There are a lot of places where, if you know what you're looking for, you can still see where the railroad bed went. The dams don't really keep the canyon from deteriorating. That's just Department of Reclamation propaganda. I went kayaking down the river during the spring runoff in the mid 1950's before they put the dams in. The water was a lot higher back then than it is now, but I can tell you that the canyon did not change a bit from year to year. The dams did destroy a lot of the canyon, including a mighty spire of rock called Curacanti's Needle which was named after a famous member of the Ute Indian tribe. It also drowned out the original town of Sapinero, which was an idyllic little village with a log hotel, all surrounded by ranches, lush hay fields, and huge cottonwood trees. When they started building the Blue Mesa Reservoir dam they offered to buy out the townsfolk for $75 a lot, which even back then was highway robbery, or they could accept an equal sized plot of land on the basically desert land of the south bank with no water or any other city amenities. The Department of Reclamation made no plans to move the town cemetery, and were shocked when a few coffins broke through and were found floating on the slowly filling lake. The Blue Mesa Reservoir brought lots of sports fishermen to Gunnison, but that has been a mixed bag for sure. I won't go into the ins and outs of it since that's mostly old news, and not really history that anyone would or should care about I just wanted to make the point that there was a lot more destruction as a result of the dams than any small number of rock falls may or may not have caused, and that further, more rockfalls have actually been generated around the edges of the three reservoirs than ever occurred naturally. There has been all sorts of irreversible ecological damage as a result of the damming, but all of that is in the past too. Just don't let government agencies sell it as something which on average was a good thing, because on average it was (and is) not.

Going again in October. I understand how it got it's name and all...yet there is something else there...kinda mysterious. Million Dollar Hwy....is a must. Just take it slow and easy...you'll be fine. (Have a barf bag for the passenger...and might want to ask them to just sit there and shut up lol).

Wow! That was an amazing video! Such stunning scenery. I was pretty tense when you guys were so high up and Tiny getting close to the edges 😬 Great job Jess!

Gosh dang it these places are incredible!!!

Fear of heights, especially cliff drop offs... I have it, too. There is MUCH more to see in the Black Gunnison, unbelievable scenery, if you don't mind driving Million Dollar Highway type roads... into the canyon. I cannot do it, yet, but hope to get over my fear of heights before I die. I've hiked the Grand Canyon twice, but drive a road with a steep cliff, I go straight into fear zone. I just want to get over it, already, because I'm missing so much. It's not about bravery... not one bit. I'd be willing to bet you'd save someone's life in spite of your own risk without a second thought. Experts say "negative or traumatic experience that involved a significant height may contribute to a person developing acrophobia." I have no clue what could have caused my fear of heights in this life, but mine comes and goes, oddly.

Visiting montrose soon, can you drive up the road to the black canyon andd just walk to thr cliff edge ? Or do you have to pay to park or something. Im from the uk so usa traffic law is new to me, here you can just park on any road that doesnt have yellow lines

I hear a ticking time OMG in the background.

The reason the water doesn't mix for a distance downstream is because of the difference in water temperature. The clear water being released from the dam comes form very deep in the reservoir and is extremely cold. The other water is warmer (still pretty cold) turbid water which is carrying a pretty heavy silt load, perhaps because of rain far upstream. The silt will eventually precipitate out, slowly building up a sand bar over the years, and eventually some distance downstream the temperature difference will even out and the water will mix. Crazy hydrology. I'm not sure that the building you were looking at was ever a visitor centre. It was at one time (and I think still is) the building which housed the electricity generating turbines. They may have at one time led tours through there, but all that sort of thing stopped when 9/11 happened, and things have only tightened with the growth of right wing militia movements some of whom have threatened to blow the dam which would destroy many communities downstream, including but not limited to Hotchkiss, Montrose Delta, and Grand Junction. That's why people are no longer allowed to go close to the dam, and why t hey have countermeasures in place to bring down any drone which crosses into the restricted zone. Because of all the bad actors, we can't have nice things anymore.

I grew up there and use to go there before any fencing

lol i would confidently go to that first edge