The Pitts Stop

Montrose – Black Canyon of the Gunnison

July 18, Tuesday:  Ridgeway, CO to Montrose CO

We drove north to our next campground just south of Montrose.  My sister and her family lived in Montrose for a few years it was a decent-sized town that we could use as a home base to explore the area north of Ridgeway.  We didn’t realize that our campground north of Ridgeway and our campground south of Montrose were only twenty miles apart.  This campground has both TV and WIFI – hooray!  After a quick lunch, we drove ten minutes up to Montrose to explore and do some grocery shopping.  We took a look at the municipal golf course (not impressed) and stopped at the visitors’ center to find out about the old fashioned drive-in movie theater they have in town. 

July 19, Wednesday:  Montrose, CO

The major attraction in this area is the national park, Black Canyon of the Gunnison.  We called to reserve our seats on a boat tour of the Black Canyon of the Gunnison (river), but they were full, so scheduled it for Friday. 

 We drove up to the south rim of the Black Canyon of the Gunnison.  The first viewpoint is an overlook platform suspended over the gorge with deep massive rock walls.  We did a few short walks at various viewpoints, ate lunch and took a two-mile hike to an outcropping where we could see the canyon on one side and the Montrose plains on the other.  The views were well worth the steep and hot walk. 

Next, we took an access road all the way down to the river – a 2,000’ descent on a dirt road with a 16 percent grade.  The drive was a bit scary, but we enjoyed the solitude of the river at the bottom of the canyon.  On the way back to Montrose, we stopped for a few groceries.  We can see storm clouds are all around us, but it is sunny and very breezy here. 

July 20, Thursday:  Montrose, CO

Today is Golf day for Jack.  I did laundry and tried to put up a website – no luck.

July 21, Friday:  Montrose, CO

Linnie and Ben are here – they drove more than six hours just to spend the weekend.  We tried to get them reservations for the boat tour of the Black Canyon of the Gunnison, but it was full; so we decided we would change our reservations to Saturday so we could all go together. 

We decided to split up today with Linnie and Ben driving down to Telluride to ride the gondola and tour their old hometown of Montrose, while Jack and I make the long drive to the North Rim of the Black Canyon.  This drive is part of the West Elk scenic byway and it was a beautiful drive over mesas and down into canyons.  The north rim views of the canyon are better, too – more of the river can be seen.  We all joined up late in the afternoon and drove through pouring rain to a great Mexican restaurant in Ridgeway. 

July 22, Saturday:  Montrose, CO

 Boat tour day – we drove out, walked down to the river and had lunch, but were plagued by nasty flies.  The hike to the boat launch sounded scary with over 200 steps, but it was actually an easy walk.  The ranger on the boat tour was very good, talking about the history and geology of the canyon while we enjoyed the beautiful scenery.   

July 23, Sunday:  Montrose, CO

Linnie and Ben are leaving and Jack and I decided to take an easy day.  Jack did RV and car stuff and watched the British Open while I did laundry and made spaghetti sauce outside on the camp stove to avoid heating up the RV.  We were going to drive to Aspen and a couple of other mountain towns, but Jack didn’t want to drive any long distances.

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