As when we took the Black Canyon rim ride (see Lots+lots+lots=tons blog), we left our rv park across from Old Stevens picnic area, headed west on US50 and crossed Blue Mesa Reservoir to the dam.
This time we didn’t take the road across the dam to the north rim.
Instead, we continued west toward Montrose,
then turned north on Co 347 to our turn around point,
(so called because a lot of the rock walls lining the canyon are black volcanic rock.)
After we showed our National Parks pass at the entrance station, we had two choices. One was the South Rim Road along the top of the gorge, and the other was the East Portal Road down to the bottom and along the river. We were here to experience the East Portal Road with it’s 16% grades, hairpin turns, and 2000’ drop in elevation from top to bottom.
We had never ridden roads this steep before, and Duane was a bit nervous.
We made it to the bottom with no problem except that Duane missed a lot of the jaw-dropping views.
We stopped here so that he had a good look at this view.
We rode the road to its end just before Crystal Reservoir and Dam, then turned around and started back up. On the bike, it’s more difficult to go up than down, but we made it back up again with no problem.
Back on top we rode the South Rim Road to its end. We stopped at the visitors Center to stamp my (National Parks) Passport, and found a short walk to an observation platform.
Looking straight down 2000 feet.
There are many pull-off along the Rim Road, many with short (100-400 yard) walks to vista views like this one.
As we exited the Park and started down the mountain we were treated to a panoramic view of the city of Montrose.
We completed our ride by backtracking US 50.
We highly recommend this park to anyone visiting the Gunnison area. We rate it at the top of our favorite National Parks list.
Time to plan another trip.
Louise and Duane
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