This is Labor Day holiday weekend in the US and the weather in Colorado is perfect so I knew it would be busy in restaurants, on the road and at attractions. I had hoped to get an early start by having breakfast at the hotel but it was awful and I ended up having to wait a while for a table at the local diner. Luckily, that was the only problem of the day.

Again I was mainly driving and, again, there was a National Park to visit on the way. The 200 mile drive was from Durango to Gunnison, CO and the park was The Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park.

Almost all of the driving was along scenic byways and the section from Durango to Ouray, called the Million Dollar Highway, certainly lived up to that description. In addition to spectacular mountain views there are also historic mining towns along the way. I didn’t have time to stop to look around the towns but the scenery is captured well in another must-see road video that can be viewed here.

The road between Ouray and the National Park was not particularly special but the Black Canyon of the Gunnison certainly is. One thing that makes this canyon different is that it is much narrower than it is deep. At its narrowest it is only 1,100 feet wide at the rim but 1,890 feet deep and the limited sunlight that penetrates the chasm gives it its name. It has also been carved very quickly by the Gunnison River (about one inch per century) and so it is very rugged. In fact, there are no established trails below the rim so I viewed the canyon from multiple overlooks along the scenic drive.

After viewing the canyon I drove on to Gunnison, CO which was also very scenic in places.

Silverton is a small, historic mining town on the Million Dollar Highway.
The Black Canyon of the Gunnison is narrow, deep and rugged.
Painted Wall is the tallest cliff in Colorado at 2,250 feet high.
The river is not as powerful as it once was but can be clearly heard from the rim as it rushes over rapids.