![\"Cammaron](\"http:\/\/teamhokies.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/DSC01265-Cimmaron-Campground-1b.jpg\")
<\/a>Cammaron National Forest campground, sweet view and had it all to myself.<\/p><\/div>\n
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On the way out I stopped by Morrow Point\u00a0Dam, 469′ tall, 740′ long, 52′ wide at the base and 12′ wide at the top<\/p>\n
<\/a>Morrow Point Dam,an impressive sight though I personally would rather see what the water flow looks like unobstructed!<\/p><\/div>\n
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Black Canyon of the Gunnison<\/h2>\n
Pictures and words won’t do justice to this place. The basic uniqueness is the depth (2000′) vs. the width (~2 miles). Compare this to the Grand Canyon at 4000′ average vs. 20 miles. The Grand Canyon is 277 miles long vs 48 miles for the Black. The narrowest part is only 40′ across and must have been a site when the river was flowing freely after a large rain. The first picture below gives a sense of the width vs. depth. The canyon was carved by the Gunnison river over a relatively short 2 million years (compared to 6 million for the Grand Canyon). The force of the river comes from the incredibly fast elevation drop which averages almost 100′ per mile in the park itself. This compares to 0.5’\/mi for the Mississippi and something like 35’\/mi for the Colorado if my memory serves me.<\/p>\n
This great force from the river, especially during the rain storms that are present during the summer, has a massive erosion effect on the terrain. The rim doesn’t suffer much erosion due to the hard rock (primarily gneiss) where the Grand Canyon has a much softer sandstone type of material that erodes more readily. That’s simplified explanation but makes the point.<\/p>\n
I took over 100 pictures during my day there and it was hard to downselect to just a few but the couple below are my favorites.<\/p>\n
<\/a>A nice view of the canyon, showing the relative narrowness (2 miles) vs the depth (2000′)<\/p><\/div>\n
<\/a>A nice view of the river snaking through the canyon<\/p><\/div>\n
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Juniper is the tree of choice for this terrain. The Juniper is an incredibly tough tree, surviving in a very unfriendly environment, I came across the gigantic example pictured below which is a few hundred\u00a0years old. The tree grows\u00a0seed cones on a 2 year schedule which are a valuable source of nutrition for local wildlife. There are other examples that date to 800 years old but I liked this one best.<\/p>\n
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