COME TO LIFE / San Juan Splendor SAN JUAN SPLENDOR: MONTROSE, OURAY, RIDGWAY & TELLURIDE COLORADO DAY 1 It took thousands of years for the Gunnison River to carve out the area’s most identifiable feature — the 48-mile-long Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park (1) near Montrose . Start at the Elk Creek Visitor Center , located on Blue Mesa Reservoir , Colorado’s largest body of water. Winds captured by flat-topped buttes make for prime sailing conditions. Anglers, too, will find deep water filled with kokanee salmon and mackinaw trout. And boaters freely roam more than 41,000 acres of lake. The Morrow Point Boat Tour is well worth the 232 steps down to the boat landing. Float on the 40-foot pontoon to the foot of precipitous 1,000-foot cliffs. Landlubbers can stick to the four-mile Curecanti Creek Trail , which passes through forests as it drops 800 feet below the canyon’s rim. Visit the park itself: The astonish-ingly steep walls of the canyon rise more than 2,000 vertical feet from the river. The cliffs expose 2-billion-year-old black metamorphic rock and are so sheer that hiking into the canyon is an ambitious undertaking. Instead, take a relatively flat walk from the South Rim Visitor Center . Peer across the chasm to Colorado’s tallest cliff, Painted Wall — you’ll know it by the white gashes through the other wise pitch-black stone. The park is also an International Dark-Sky Park, with stargazing ops that will blow you away year-round but are especially vivid in the winter. Montrose is a gateway to biking, hiking, rafting, hunting and fishing. As a basecamp for exploring the area, you’ll be charmed by the Old West feel yet surprised by modern eateries and shops. Visit the Water Sports Park on the Uncompahgre River for kayaking, tubing and swimming. West of Montrose, explore the Dominguez-Escalante National Conservation Area ’s 200,000 acres of red-rock canyon country or the Buzzard Gulch Trail System . In town, the newly expanded Ute Indian Museum connects the past with contemporary Ute life and culture. 2 1 QUICK TIP 140 / Ridgway is homebase to the San Juan Hut System , which connects you to Colorado’s best mountain-biking trails, hiking trails and backcountry skiing/snowshoeing while staying in a network of 16 isolated mountain huts connected by singletrack trails and routes through amazing terrain. 1-800-COLORADO FROM LEFT: BLACK CANYON OF THE GUNNISON NATIONAL PARK, EFRAÍN M. PADRÓ; OURAY HOT SPRINGS POOL, MIKE BORUTA.
Colorado Official State Vacation Guide 2019: Page 140
