Black Canyon

Once again I had a visitor from Germany calling by! Torsten from Nuernberg wanted to see Denver, Colorado and all the rest he missed on his last US trip two years ago. That's why I took him on a road trip through the rugged south-western Colorado including the Black Canyon, Curecanti lake and recreation area, South Park (something close to the TV show), Alamosa and the Great Sanddunes.

The first stop on our road trip was a part of Colorado I didn't see myself so far: the Black Canyon of Gunnison... which is already kind of funny as the closest town to the Black Canyon is not Gunnison but Montrose which is a good 40 miles closer. Oh well... what do I know? This time I was only a tourist myself ;-)

What I know is that it is a quite astonishing canyon, twice as deep as the Empire state building tall. The painted wall seen on the picture on the left is amazing and looks like a giant Picasso!

But after hiking the canyon for a couple of hours Torsten and I agreed... first of all to the astonishing views of the canyon were worth the trip but also that we got scammed! The Black Canyon isn't black at all... well kind of I guess... but calling it the Grey Canyon doesn't have a good sound to it... marketing is everything, even for National Parks ;-)