Telluride and the Black Canyon of the Gunnison

Wherein Moominmama enjoys more of the Colorado spring at high elevation...

The rocky peaks of Telluride and the steep walls of the Black Canyon of the Gunnison are separated by a couple hours' drive, but they are formed by a similar process: a combination of tectonic uplift, volcanic activity and erosion. 

While one can see the mountains of the Uncompahgre for miles, the Black Canyon is a geological feature that springs itself on you: a gorge with sheer cliffs over 2,700 feet deep. It narrows to as much as 40 feet at the bottom and 1,000 feet at the rim. You don't see it until you're at the edge. 

One of the interesting features of the gorge is its striped cliff faces. Most of the rock here is metamorphic rock: a dark grey gneiss and schist, (why this is called the Black Canyon). But tectonic uplift pushed these 1.8 billion-year-old rocks over a volcanic hotspot and magma flowed up filling any cracks. 

The magma then cooled over millions of years, allowing large crystals of feldspar, mica and quartz to form. This is a form of granite, but a unique form called pegmatite. As a national park ranger explained, this is the difference between fine bourbon and plain whiskey. After seeing a piece of pegmatite polished up at the visitor center, I'll settle for nothing less if I ever have a reason to want granite countertops!

Millions of winters of freezing and thaws, especially on the south-facing side also broke apart the rock, creating jagged peaks all along the rim. The water of the Gunnison River carved deep into the rock as it dropped from the surrounding mountains and continues to do so. The canyon deepens by roughly the thickness of a sheet of paper every year, per one of the rangers.

This is not a canyon you can easily hike into, in fact, special permits are required so the park service can prevent amateurs from getting into trouble. But for experienced rock climbers, apparently, these walls present is an appealing challenge.

Moominmama has spent the last week hiking above 8,000 feet, sucking wind on some steep trails but enjoying every minute. Oddly enough, I saw only a few wildflowers along the paths in Telluride, primarily dandelions! 

But a fire last year on the south rim of Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park seems to have made space for a diversity of wildflowers. A trail that dropped me a couple hundred feet into the canyon was full of color.

What Telluride lacked for wildflowers, it made up for in waterfalls. That has allowed the city to rely on hydropower since in the late 1800s. A power plant along the San Miguel River in nearby Ophir was the first hydroelectric facility to generate alternative current (as opposed to direct current) for industrial purposes in the U.S.

A second power plant at the top of Bridal Veil Falls is no longer operational, but it was only brought offline 10 years ago, so it served the community well for over 100 years, and you can still see the last-century building perched on top of the famous falls (the tallest in Colorado). 

Climbing up the rocky trail to get to the base of this falls was compared to a relentless Stairmaster by a fellow hiker. Moominmama won't disagree. Telluride is in a high valley and surrounded by rocky peaks, one of the reasons this is a ski town. But every hike except the riverwalk is steep.

So, after completing the Bridal Veil hike, Moominmama opted for the free gondola ride to get the top of the Telluride Ski Resort. The gondola is operated by the separate municipality of Mountain Village on the other side of the peak from Telluride. 

While Telluride is an organic community with diverse architecture, some of it still connected to its mining history, Mountain Village is a planned resort, supposedly modeled on European ski towns, except it's the Disney version.

The gondola serves as much as public transportation as a ski lift, moving people to and from each downtown plus one leg to a free parking area on the outskirts.

Moominmama rode up to the San Sophia station and down into Mountain Village then back to Telluride with several locals who use it to get to work. 

This past winter was tough for both communities. In addition to the lack of snow, a strike early in the season by the ski patrollers' union shut the resort down for almost two weeks right after Christmas. No one Moominmama spoke to had anything but sympathy for the strikers. But everyone appears to be looking forward a better snow season this coming winter and counting on a decent influx of summer tourists.

Below is a view from the top to some of the other peaks above Mountain Village. Moominmama hopes to enjoy some more spectacular scenery in a few days, when I head to the North Rim of the Black Canyon. Hopefully more wildflowers too!