You’re visiting Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park in Colorado, and you have several days to spend in the area. You’ve spent a couple of days gazing out at this remarkable canyon and river from different roadside viewpoints as well as along different hikes. What is there to do and see, now? Plenty!
Listed below are a few side trips you might wish to consider while in the area.
Ute Indian Museum, Montrose, Colorado
Distance from South Rim Visitor Center: 17.6 miles (28.3 km)
Ute Indians were the first to explore and make their homes in Black Canyon area, living along the canyon rims.
According to the museum’s website:
Exhibits focus on the Ute peoples’ history of adaptation and persistence, and unfold around a central theme of geography, highlighting significant locations in Ute history.
…Originally built in 1956 near the ranch of Uncompahgre leader Chief Ouray and his wife Chipeta. The museum and grounds are listed in the National Register of Historic Places. The grounds include Chief Ouray memorial park, the grave where Chipeta was buried after her death on reservation lands in Utah in 1924, and a native plants garden. The complex is linked to the city-wide trail system and includes shady picnic areas, walking paths, and a memorial to Spanish conquistadors who traveled through the area in 1776. The museum features new community spaces for events and programs, as well as an expanded gift shop offering children’s gifts, books, and authentic Native American turquoise and silver jewelry, beadwork, and Ute pottery.
Kayaking on Blue Mesa Reservoir, Curecanti National Recreation Area / NPS - Kat Connelly
Curecanti National Recreation Area
Distance from South Rim Visitor Center: 48.6 miles (78.2 km)
For a change of scenery, view the Gunnison River from a ground-level perspective at this National Recreation Area. If you are a paddler, this is the place to ply the water with your paddleboard, kayak, or canoe on any of the three reservoirs at this NRA, created from the waters of the Upper Gunnison River in the 1960s by the Bureau of Reclamation: Blue Mesa Reservoir, Morrow Point Reservoir, and Crystal Reservoir. At Blue Mesa Reservoir, you pilot your motorboat to secluded fishing locations, or use it for waterskiing.
Ouray, Colorado
Distance from South Rim Visitor Center: 50.6 miles (80.5 km)
Considered (by Ouray townsfolk, anyway) the “Outdoor Recreation Capital of Colorado,” this high-elevation community (7,800 feet/2,377 meters) offers hot springs for soaking, trails to hike, and a history dating back to 1876, two months after Colorado was established as the 38th state.
The scenic drive through Fruita Canyon in Colorado National Monument / NPS - Victoria Stauffenberg
Colorado National Monument
Distance from South Rim Visitor Center: 87.7 miles (141 km)
Located right next to Grand Junction, Colorado, this national monument offers a much different landscape of mesas, buttes, and canyons all in terracotta colors. The 23imile Rim Rock Drive winds up switchbacks onto the mesa tops and then along the canyon walls before descending back into the valley for spectacular views from the road as well as several overlooks looking out through red-rock canyons to the wide-open vistas beyond. You can even download a geology tour pamphlet to take with you on your drive.
Crested Butte, Colorado
Distance from South Rim Visitor Center: 91.4 miles (147 km)
Well-known for its winter ski activities, this small town of under 2,000 population offers a plethora of spring-to-fall outdoor activities (golfing, fishing, hiking, paddling, climbing, scenic driving) in addition to summer concert venues and an annual arts festival.
Almost equidistant from Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park are four other units of the National Park System you might wish to explore, although they take longer to get to so you might consider these side trips as two-day affairs rather than getting there and back in a single day:
Mesa Verde National Park (Colorado) - 160 miles (257.5 km)
Mesa Verde National Park highlights the cliff dwellings and other ruins of the Ancestral Puebloans / Rebecca Latson
Dinosaur National Monument (Colorado and Utah) - 180 miles (289.7 km)
150 million years ago, dinosaurs roamed in what is now Dinosaur National Monument, and their fossils are still embedded in the rocks / NPS file
Hovenweep National Monument (Colorado and Utah) - 180 miles(289.7 km)
Hovenweep National Monument preserves six prehistoric sites built between A.D. 1200 and 1300 which may have served as ceremonial centers / NPS file
Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve (Colorado) - 200 miles (322 km)
The tallest sand dunes in North America are nestled snugly against the Sangre de Cristo Mountains at Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve / Rebecca Latson
