Hiking to the Bottom of Black Canyon--The Longest Mile!

When we first saw this view from the visitor's center, we wondered about a hike down into this great canyon.  Even though the first ranger told us there was no such trail, we heard rumors that there was a way to get down there. 







We talked to other hikers and another ranger, and found that there was a "route" to the bottom that starts off the Oak Flat Loop.  That arrow leading to river access will lead you to an adventure to the bottom.  Denisa looks all rested and refreshed this morning because she hasn't started the adventure yet.

The hike is only one mile to the bottom.  But we would soon find that it would be the longest mile! The path immediately grew steep as we started down the river access trail.  A wilderness permit is mandatory past this point, and we did all the paperwork necessary that morning.  They only allow 15 people per day into the canyon on that route. 

Before we left, we had to hear all the lectures about the steepness of the trail.  They showed us pictures of the route.  They also told us to let our next of kin know where we were and what we were doing so someone could be worrying about us and come looking for us if we never emerged from the bottom.  We did attempt to do this step, but there isn't a good enough phone signal to send a text from the visitor's center.  So we set off on the hike to the bottom anyway.

 Because the trail was so steep, it didn't take long before we were inside the canyon.  The views were beautiful!  It was cold this morning when we started, but we are working hard and our sleeves are already rolled up by 9:30.


 Because it was so steep, we were using anything we could find to hold on to.  Even though few people take this route down, we could see that the tree trunks had smooth places from hands grasping for them.  More often, it was actually the tree roots that we were clinging to.  So we were glad when we finally got to the section that had a chain to hang on to for support.

 This section was almost 90 degrees straight down, and that chain made it so much easier!

By 10:00 we are looking up to see the rim, and the views are even better than they were from the top.

As you can see from Denisa's stature in the bottom of the picture below, the only way to get down many of the sections was to just sit and slide. Knowing that, we purposefully wore thicker jeans today.  We're not sure that those jeans will ever be the same.  We were wishing for gloves as well, as we were using our palms as brakes and grabbing for roots and rocks to slow us down.

By 11:00 we can see the river clearly, but it will take another thirty minutes to hike (or should we say slide) to the bottom.

It was a tough adventure, but Denisa is still smiling as we approach the bottom of the canyon.

We did get the token picture of the two of us at the bottom of the Black Canyon.  This was taken by one of the two hikers we saw on the trail today.  Both of them were young men, and both of them passed us on the trail--one going up and one going down.  They were in a hurry, but we had the luxury of taking all day for this hike.  We needed the extra time because Denisa is old.  Mark could have kept up with the young bucks if he didn't have to give Denisa a hand up and down some of the worst spots.

After that 2.5 hour slide to the bottom, we stayed by the river for some extra time to enjoy our accomplishment.

Just as its hard to take pictures of 2,000 foot canyon walls from the top, it's also hard to capture their majesty from the bottom.

The Gunnison River is flowing hard, but is nothing like the river that carved this canyon.  With all the dams upstream, and the tunnel that moves a large part of the river to the Uncumpahgra Valley on the other side of the canyon walls, this is just a fraction of the mighty Gunnison.

Now we are in the shadows of the canyon walls, and totally invisible from the viewpoints at the top.

We weren't alone in the canyon.  We found a single deer that we approached carefully.

But she didn't offer to move out of our way, so we used our best stealth moves to go around her as we made our way down the river.

We scrambled over the rocks at the bottom of the canyon until we got to a point where we couldn't go any further.  After a tough hike down, we wanted to enjoy our time at the bottom for as long as possible.

 More pictures!  We eat the lunch we packed in one of the most memorable hikes we've done so far.  We might be putting off the trek to get back out of this canyon.

This is the final panorama shot of the area we are blessed to experience.  We wandered all over this awesome wonder!

If we had wanted to carry our overnight gear down into the canyon, we could have camped by the river.  There was even a vault toilet at the bottom.  There was a sign inside the privy with a little humor from the park's ranger staff.

After all that picture-taking and procrastinating, we finally had to start the journey back to the top.  Just like at the Grand Canyon, going down is optional, but hiking back up is mandatory.

We took very few pictures going up, mainly because we were too tired.  Sliding down was hard, but crawling on hands and knees at a 60 degree angle for hours is even harder. We had been warned that it was easy to lose the route coming out of the canyon.  There are cairns (like the one in the left foreground) that help to keep us on route.  We added to these rock cairns on our way down, as they were few and far between.

Even with rock cairns to help, it is easy to lose the route--ask us how we know.  Two different times we got off trail and had to claw our way back to a different path.  Mark had started his phone's GPS tracks app, and we were certainly glad to have that record of our descent to help us find that way for our ascent.  Mark was the hero in finding our way out!  If we had missed the trail, we would have missed the help from the chain on the way up.

It was the most exhausting hike we have taken.  It is crazy to think that a one-mile hike can take so much time and energy.  It took us 2.5 hours to hike down, and over 3 hours to get back up.  With the hiking at the bottom, we were on the trail for 7 hours.  We've been on 7-hour hikes many times before, but never one that averaged a 60 degree angle.  This was epic!  By the time we reached the wilderness permit sign at the top, Denisa is no longer rested and refreshed.

We needed a day (or two) to recover.  We found that our legs were more sore than usual, but our arms were also aching from all the scrambling and pulling they did to get us up and down that canyon wall.  It was a beautiful and unusual hike, but Denisa isn't interested in doing it again.  Mark, however, might just be crazy enough to hike the longest mile another time.