Glorious Colorado

The Black Canyon of the Gunnison is the steepest gorge in the US, so named because the cliffs are so sheer that sunlight struggles to find its bottom (some parts get 33 minutes per day!). Other canyons in America are longer, wider and deeper, but none combine the depth, sheerness, narrowness and darkness of the Black Canyon. 

At certain points the cliff walls descend in a sheer drop for almost 3000 feet - more than double the Empire State Building. 

I've never had a problem with heights, but this was heart-stopping, vertigo inducing to peer down. My pulse was racing after this little peek away from the protective fences. 

We explored the park, and were then treated to yet another amazing sunset. 

Duly mesmerised, we camped for a night in the park, very careful not to do any sleep-walking. 

The next morning we headed off to Mesa Verde, a long 5-hour drive to Southwest Colorado, and home of the former cliff dwelling Pueblo Indians.  

I'd visited this park with my own family back in 1977, and I'm not sure if the archaeological record has created new insights, or if I just remember it poorly, but this was even cooler than I remembered. 

Firstly, there are hundreds of these dwellings, if only a few big ones, and these weren't even the biggest dwellings the Pueblos had at the time. They were an industrious tribe, with advanced agriculture, building techniques, and cities with tens of thousands of people, all in the arid desert of the American Southwest. Charlotte and I were captivated. 

After spending so many days, camping and travelling from site to site, (by the way, I've stopped mentioning all the wildlife we've seen because it's daily - we've seen over a hundred deer...!) we then headed for a little break in Durango. 

Durango is yet another charming Colorado town with heaps of character. Like the other places we've fallen in love with, they seem to have a ban on chain franchises on their Main Street. From the design of the buildings, to the privately owned shops themselves, it just feels like  you're walking through an American town from the 1950s, albeit with wifi and good coffee. 

This is consistent throughout various towns we've visited, including Silverton and Crested Butte. If they have a Walmart or McDonalds, which some do, they're not located (allowed?) in the centre of town. 

It all just reaks of a welcoming, genuine charm and style.  Obviously, the tourists coming for the mountains creates the economic platform for discerning zoning laws, so this is even possible.  But I've visited so many tourist destinations where local design is so full of plastic commercialism (Egypt, Cannes, St Tropez, Miami..., er, all of Florida, to name a few) that it spoils the experience. 

Colorado is exceptional. 

Ironically, by the time we got to Durango we felt almost 'beautied out' - theres only so much time you can spend standing agape, full of mesmerised wonder. Luckily, I knew just what we needed. They had an impressive rec centre, and Charlotte and I just love games, so we decided to spend a couple of days competing at ping pong, fusball, eight-ball, racquetball, basketball...

 

...and working out. 

For the record, Charlotte is now much better at basketball than me, but I can still lift more weight than her. 

After that little sojourn, we were ready for another fourteener. Mount Sneffels was on the cards, so we pitched camp before another glorious sunset...

...and decided to go for a sunrise summit. This would mean waking up at 2:30am, and climbing the mountain in the dark, with only our headlamps to guide us. 

This is easier said than done. At night, the limited perspective that a headlamp creates means that trails can be hard to follow, especially trails over rock, which are sometimes hard to follow in the day. 

We got lost two or three times, and although we thought we'd found the trail again, we ended up clambering up a huge 300 metre long, steep incline of loose scree, which meant that for every step forward our feet would slide back half a step. Disheartening. Not knowing whether we were on the right trail meant that I kept looking out for signs of potential Avalanche, but it never got that steep, fortunately.  It wasn't until daylight and the down-climb that we realised this part of the trail was just rough - we were in the right place, although we found a firmer route to descend. 

Fortunately, I'd got the time of sunrise wrong, so despite out wayward efforts, we still got to the saddle just before sunrise. 

So we got to sit back and enjoy Mother Nature do her thing.

Again, the photos don't do the experience justice, but here's a few anyway. 

Interesting note. For some reason, on this particular day, there was no wind in the mountains. None. So as day broke, as the light began filling out our vista with each craggily detail, as our world came into view, we were in complete, overwhelming silence. It was beyond magical. It was like watching life begin, without fanfare or distraction.  So pure and simple. 

We felt so incredibly blessed.