Curecanti National Recreation Area

Again, we found a national recreation area that we had never heard of, and cannot pronounce--Curecanti National Recreation Area.  It includes Blue Mesa Lake, as well as miles of canyon carved by the Gunnison River.  As you can tell from the blue in the picture, the lake is true to its color name.  

Blue Mesa Lake stretches for twenty miles, but our favorite view is with the mountain named "The Pinnacles" behind the lake.

Curecanti National Recreation Area also includes many miles of the 48-mile canyon carved by the Gunnison River.  We took two nice hikes into that canyon.

The goal of the first hike was to look for a possible spot to put our kayak into the river.  Just below the dam is a boat landing, with only a few obstacles for a wonderful kayak trip. 

Obstacle one would be the 232 steps that we would have to carry the kayak down (and of course back up).  Obstacle two would be the hard flow of the river right below the dam because they were releasing water from the lake.  This area has been blessed with good rains that are making a difference in the drought conditions they have endured in recent years.  Paddling back upstream against that current would be very hard.  So instead of kayaking, we opted for a hike along the river.

This is actually the same route that people taking the ranger-led pontoon boat tour of the river would take.  In fact, we saw the boat as it was leaving on its 2-hour tour.

What we didn’t realize, was that while we were taking a picture of the boat, we accidentally took a picture of a bear on the other side of the canyon.  All the passengers were watching the bear climbing up the canyon wall.  The bear didn't show up well in the picture because he was in the shadows on the right hand side of the picture, but it was fun for us to see him on the OTHER side of the river.

We also discovered that instead of wild strawberries, this canyon has wild raspberries.  The ranger thought the bear was probably hunting berries today, so Denisa was trying to eat the “bear food” before he decided to come to our side of the canyon to get it.  She tried to convince Mark that all her stops for berries were only for his protection. The raspberries were tiny but tasty.

After exploring this area on the south rim of the canyon, we drove to the north rim.  We stopped at various view points, and found that the further west we drove, the deeper the canyon walls were.

It was interesting to see the rolling plains at the top of those tall canyon walls.  We imagined the surprised look of the explorers riding over those plains hundreds of years ago and finding that gaping hole of a canyon suddenly appear before them.

Pioneer Point was our favorite view point, and the views down were spectacular.

We also made a stop further west for another great look of the canyon and Gunnison River at Hermits Rest viewpoint.

After seeing all we could from the top, we vowed to return for the hike down to the bottom of the canyon on another day.  “Another day” dawned with cloudy skies, but we have found that we can hike in the rain.  So we gathered up our rain gear and went on a hike.   You can barely see Denisa in the rainy haze at the bottom right corner of the picture as we started the trek down.

In spite of the rain, we headed down the two-mile trail that would descend 900 feet in elevation along the Curecanti River.

There were several beautiful distractions along the way, including an interesting tree to climb and take a break in.

We followed the Curecanti River for most of the hike.  Since we were hiking down 900 feet, the river's steep path made for great waterfalls.  It was another of God's wonders to walk beside a continuous waterfall that rambled along the canyon wall for a quarter of mile.  It was deafening at times.  What a great hike!

When we reached the bottom of the canyon, we could look up 900 feet to spot the viewing point that we had looked down from the day before.

As we reached the bottom of the canyon, we were surrounded on both sides by massive walls.  The views would have been better without the rain, but it was wonderful to make it to the bottom.

The Curecanti River eventually emptied into the wide Gunnison River at the bottom of the canyon.  It was amazing to now be looking up at Curecanti Needle that we had looked down at from the Pioneer Point viewpoint.

At the bottom of the canyon is a camping spot for hikers that would like to enjoy this little slice of heaven overnight.  There's even a privy in the woods, and a metal bear box chained to a tree to keep food supplies safe from the wildlife. This would be a good place to stash those delicious wild raspberries.

But today it was raining occasionally, and you can clearly see the raindrops hitting the River at the base of the canyon.

So we headed back out of the canyon.  You can barely see Denisa making her way over the river bridge, trying to dodge the raindrops.

We found that the foliage in the canyon was heavy enough to form an umbrella from the rain.  So when we found dry areas, we waited out the showers.  It made for a slow trip out of the canyon, but it kept us from getting tired as we made our way up those 900 feet in elevation.  The nice thing about being retired, is that we didn't have to hurry to the top since we didn't have to be back to work the next day.

On this rainy day we had met another hiker on the trail that was going down to the bottom as we were hiking out.  He and his dog were both outfitted in orange rain gear, so they were easy for us to spot at the very bottom when we made it to the top.   The picture we took, however, was not detailed enough to show them clearly.  So Mark worked a little magic to enlarge the hiker and move him to the box in the bottom left of the following picture.  The red lines point to his actual position in the picture beside the stream.

The views from the top are great, but the views are even better from the bottom.  There are great hikes into the canyon at Curecanti National Park!