COLORADO CANYONS

Day 135 - 2015-09-02 - Mileage 296 (16,930)

Another Chamber of Commerce day in the Grand Tetons.  We headed out of the park toward Jackson, WY.  We picked up WY 191/189, a scenic highway that took us through the Hoback River Valley.  This is as pretty a drive as we have taken – nice slow curves, right at the river level and then winding up the side of the canyon.  At Daniel WY we took the 189 split and headed south.  We took the WY 372 cutoff toward Green River and then continued down WY 530 toward the Flaming Gorge National Recreational Area.  This is maybe one of the most under appreciated parks we have ever seen.  The Green River flows through the gorge and the multi-colored canyon walls and the green water of the river make for an absolutely beautiful park.  And the drive around the south end of the lake and canyon was both fun (read that steep and curvy) and spectacular in the views it offered.

We visited the Red Canyon area of the park which has some of the best views of the Green River Canyon – 1,700 feet deep and 4,000 feet wide.

To give you some perspective, the little white dot on the river looked to me to be about a 23 foot deck boat.

We happened into the Red Canyon Rim Campground and were able to get a site only a few hundred feet from the rim.  On the way in we were joined by a herd of bighorn sheep.  

After setting up, we wandered over to the canyon rim and found a nice deck that overlooked the canyon and river.  Not a bad way to end the day.

Day 136 - 2015-09-03 - Mileage 170 (17,100)

We arose to bighorn sheep grazing in the campground – pretty cool way to start the day.  Today’s destination is Fruita, CO, just outside of Grand Junction.  We drove the last leg of the Flaming Gorge scenic road on UT 44, another one of those up, down, curve around kind of roads.  It was another fun drive and gave us views of several different canyons.  This took us through Vernal, UT.  We have been here before and were amazed by the flower displays throughout downtown.  We were not disappointed today.

From Vernal, Hwy 40 took us to Rangely, CO where we picked up CO 139 for the trip into Fruita.  CO 139 was an absolutely amazing drive.  The geography changed almost immediately after we got on the road, and took us through shallow canyons until we reached the approach to Douglas Pass (8,268 feet).  In the very short run up the MANY switchbacks we gained about 3,000 feet – all on a bad two lane narrow road with no shoulders and cliff-like drop-offs. The trip down was just like the trip up.  I rarely got out of 3^rd gear either direction.  No pictures to share because I was busy and Bettie was clawing the upholstery.

We arrived at the Monument RV Resort in Fruita about 2:00.  That gave me time to get the fuel filters changed on the truck and Bettie time to make our last reservations for our trip home

Day 137 - 2015-09-04 - Mileage 203 (17,303)

I’m running out of ways to describe narrow, tight, twisty, rising, falling, switchback laden roads – so I’ll just say that today we drove three of the finest.

Before leaving Fruita CO, we took the short trip to Colorado National Monument.  This is a canyon that stretches from Fruita all the way into Grand Junction.  We drove the 23 mile rim road and were in absolute awe of the scenery.

Balanced Rock

Independence Rock

Same Rock, Different Angle

After this tour, we drove to Cimarron CO and the Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park.  We had only heard about this park and didn’t really know what to expect.  The park consists of three roads, one that travels along the south rim and offers 12 overlooks, one that drops into the bottom of the canyon on a 16% grade, and one that goes along the north rim.  We drove the first two. 

The Canyon and Gunnison River

The “Painted Wall” (also known as the “Dragon Wall”) the highest cliff in Colorado at 2,250 feet

We arrived back at the Black Canyon RV Resort and were greeted by a rainstorm during dinner.  OK, it delivered an afternoon rainbow to brighten our day.

And a terrific sunset over the valley and mountains.