Black Canyon of the Gunnison

We arrived at Black Canyon of the Gunnison without any major weather issues. We set up camp and took Dad out to see the park since he had to work the next day. We arrived and it was chilly and overcast. We watched the movie about the park and then came outside to snow everywhere! I promise when we parked there was zero snow on the ground! The roads wuickly blankets with snow but we didn’t let that stop us. The roads were empty so we took a tour of the park. I started singing Christmas songs so everyone joined in! It was neat to see the snow on the wildflowers. Mom said the snow was getting stuck under the windshield wipers and we had to stop to check it out. The entire front of the Jepp was one big ice shield! The next day we awoke to no snow and clear skies. It has been very interesting seeing all these parks this trip in summer and winter conditions. We took a very long ranger hike and learned a lot about the rocks in the area. MY favorite was the pegmatite that crapt into the cracks and crevices. The canyon is very deep. Yet it is very narrow in some places. We hiked out to all of the view points in the park. I took a billion photos! I am looking for the perfect one to submit for 4-H this year. Mom took this one of the skeletonized leaf. The “potholes” were realy neat. I loved all the reflections you could get in them. Even Breighton was reflective! Suck a striking landscape! Family selfie. We haven’t done many of these this trip!
Earned another Jr. Ranger badge to add to our growing collection. Somewhere around 130 now! Our last hike of the day was along the river. The trail was washed out so we had to turn around but not before we found this little guy in our path.  

Heading into Utah tomorrow!

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