Black Canyon of the Gunnison

The Black Canyon National Park’s unique and spectacular landscape was formed slowly by the action of water and rock scouring down through hard Proterozoic crystalline rock. No other canyon in North America combines the narrow opening, sheer walls, and startling depths offered by the Black Canyon of the Gunnison.

Spectacular vistas along its scenic drives, including the monolithic Painted Wall, rising higher than the Empire State Building.

We visited the North Rim of the Black Canyon from Crawford State Park.

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Sheer black walls of schist and gneiss plummet as much as 2,700 feet along the 48-mile stretch of narrow gorge known as the Black Canyon. The 14 miles that lie within the park are like a raw cut in the Earth’s crust, exposing geologic viscera and illuminating millions of years of history. On the canyon floor, the Gunnison River rips through the gorge as it did 30 million years ago, when it began carving a chasm into the Gunnison Uplift.