From Ouray to the Black Canyon

Today we begrudgingly departed Ouray (which is a town we will definitely return to!).  The National forest campsite we were staying in limited stays to 7 days, which forced our decision to leave.  Places we’d like to do upon a return visit include: Climbing Mt. Sneffels and Courthouse mountain, canyoning Angel and Portland creeks, and, in the winter, learning to ice climb at the ice park (Which is in a beautiful canyon with 150 sprinkler heads at the top of the canyon walls to allow “harvesting” of ice from excess city water supply in the winter).

We started out with a must-see hike in Ouray.  It’s been on our list for the entire week we’ve stayed here, and we drive by it every day on our way to camp, but we kept putting it off because it was short and easy, so we thought, “we’ll do that tomorrow!”  Since there wouldn’t be a tomorrow, we did Box Canyon today.  It is a paid hike ($5 ea), and less than a quarter mile round trip, but it really was spectacular.  We can see why they charge, because the maintenance and cost of the grating and rails would not be cheap!  It’s a good way to view a canyon without requiring route finding or rappelling .

After exploring the canyon, we drove about one hour to the town of Montrose, and then drove another 13 miles to a free BLM campsite just a mile from the Black Canyon National Park entrance.  Our campsite is becoming familiar territory… dispersed camping along a semi-rough road.  The kind of road where you could get through in a Toyota Prius, if it was an insured rental.  Otherwise, some ground clearance is beneficial .

We were actually able to view the park almost in its entirety within a few hours.  The canyon is spectacular; it is technically deeper than the Grand Canyon, but we have decided we prefer to view canyons from the bottom up.  A good comparison is between Zion NP and the Grand Canyon…. we significantly prefer Zion.  We will probably stay here a couple days.  We plan to do a 2000’ scramble to the bottom of the canyon (whose entire descent happens in less than 1 mile), paddle board the reservoir at the bottom of the canyon, and paddle board a whitewater park in Montrose.

Our stay will likely be somewhat truncated since I’m currently watching the dogs aggressively fight a losing battle against small no-see-um style bugs, not to mention Leah’s cursing at the flies as she tries to make some pizza dough!  I have not been bitten yet, but each dog has about 10 small flies / gnats swarming them.  We also made the huge mistake of forgetting to fill Sherman’s water tank! =O.  So we are now paying the price for frivolously using water yesterday and this morning since we usually fill the tank between sites.  We at least have a full 7 gallons in a spare tank in the Truck, but it is much less convenient.  Leah’s comment upon filling water for tonight’s potato salad was, “now I feel like I’m definitely camping!.” (it’s kind of funny to transport all dirty dishes to the truck tailgate since that is where we store the extra water).