One of the more surprising stops on this trip has been the last few days at the Black Canyon of the Gunnison. Never heard of it myself before starting the research for our trip and it really wasn’t anything I knew about. We went based on its geographic location related to our journey.
Basically, it’s a canyon. But that doesn’t tell even half the story:
More geology according to Birgit and Karen.
1.8 Billion years ago this whole area was a huge inland sea. Lots of layers being put down. Gneiss, schist, both of which are metamorphic rock. Stay with me here. It was under a lot of pressure and collapsed down. 1.4 million years ago there was more magma pushing from below, not in a volcano kind of way but squishing up in cracks that were composed of quart and granite together called pegmatite.
30 million years ago, with pressure from below you get the Gunnison uplift which caused a nice bulge. Imagine the layers now, in places almost vertical. Then you get water collecting from the watershed of the 2 mountain ranges and it starts eroding the sedimentary rock on top and causing a channel and then exposing the metamorphic rock. Which is super hard and so it creates a narrow channel and gets deeper not wider.
The canyon used to have this phenomenal volume and velocity of water going though it. Not as much now as they have done some damming and some diverting. See Karen’s post for that.
But the result is the deepest, steepest and narrowest canyon in the WORLD. the chasm is only 40 feet wide in a couple spots. The walls are straight and beautiful because of the stripes of pegmatitie in the dark metamorphic rock. And DEEP. As in 1800-2200+ feet. Gulp. We were at 8000 feet elevation at the park. Gets cold at night…
Karen and I mustered our control over our anxiety about heights as best we could and got as close as we dared to the canyon edges.
Jim: this place is as cool as it gets
Jo: I have never seen so many earthcaches in one place!!!!
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