Bear Crawl Black Canyon

Base of Black Canyon

Bear Crawl up Black Canyon

Saturday we drove to the Black Canyon and decided to descend the rim of the canyon to get an up close look at the river and canyon walls.  After a pleasant picnic in mid afternoon, we began our ascent up the canyon walls.  While we did the 2.5 hour ascent in an hour and six minutes, we looked liked a children’s gym class bear crawling the whole way up.  To get some perspective on the pitch, there is a chain a third of the way down the canyon to aid your ascent. Braulio was geology major in college and gave me the skinny on the various rock formations as I tried helplessly to catch my breath. 

The canyon is beautiful and drastically varied throughout the day as the sun plays hide and seek with the canyon’s deep walls.  We did the Gunnison Route to the bottom.  Saturday night we camped in the East Portal and made friends with a few bambi’s eager to make camper friends. After a hard hike, I went to bed early.