Starting at dawn from Trinidad, SE Colorado, it still took me most of the day to make my way across the center of the state on meandering highways though it was a beautiful drive. I did stop in a couple resort towns to wander a bit. These outdoorsy mountain towns seem to be happening places regardless the season. Salida was really neat because you can literally white water raft or tube right into downtown.
The Black Canyon of the Gunnison is one of newer parks in the west to begin carrying our earrings and having never visited It was a must visit on this trip. It is in the central west part of the state where the mountains transition into the Colorado Plateau. But with the meandering routes and intermittent stops I am too late to get a camp site. The visitors center was also closed with their reduced hours but like my friends who were here a couple weeks ago I could see our earrings through the window. The rangers were still staffing a desk outside and so I introduced myself and ask to pass my greeting to WNPA. They had positive things to say about our earrings, mentioning the Turkey Vulture in particular.
The canyon is spectacular and nothing like any other. There are no horizontal striations characteristic of lime or sandstone. The rock is volcanic and formed vertical crevices. I used used up the few hours of daylight and hiked about eight miles seeing a Townsend’s Solitaire for the first time. It looks to me like scenery created for King Kongs island.
One trail from the VC dipped down into the canyon about 400 feet. The canyon walls are deep so that does not get you close to the floor. The park road leads to the mouth of the canyon with a number of stops along the way. From there a hiking trail there gets you to a vista where you can see out onto the Plateau in the west and higher mountain peaks in most other directions. I studied the distant landscaping in the setting sun believing the La Sal mountains in Utah, where I am heading next.
If you have visited or seen photos of Delicate Arch, you can see the La Sal Mountains on the horizon. They are only about 20 miles from Moab. I was hoping to hike up to Mann’s Peak. The highest peaks are shy of 13,000 feet. Mann’s Peak is the 6th highest at 12,275 but it is the only one that has a constructed trail. Besides, I’m not picky about the height, just want to simply be able to walk up on my two feet.
Since I was not camping at Black canyon I drove drove south to Ridgeway and west toward the Manti-La Sal National Forest. Late that night i pulled over on a roomy turn out to sleep. I awoke to a canyon wren singing near by and new then I was in canyon country. It took me another hour so to get to the National Forest and started up to the Geyser Pass. Wish I had a better map but made do with the Gazetter and maps they posted on the info kiosks. There are a lot of roads of varing degrees of maintenance marked with route numbers not on either. It’s a popular place for buggy’s and various ORV’s coming up from Moab And there are ORV enthusiast camping everywhere up here.
I found my way up to Geyser pass between the high peaks. My plan to hike Mann’s Peak fell through with thunderstorms threatening. But the weather was intermittent enough I got out onto the Moonlight Meadows trail that zigzags down through a series of meadows very green and full of flowers. There were flocks of birds too, especially at points where streams cross the meadows. There would be some scattered shrubs at the edge of the meadow teaming with birds and small groups would fly to and from out onto the meadow or clear across.
The numbers were over whelming, more than a hundred small birds in one viewing. But there where definitely a lot of Sparrows and Dark-eyed Juncos. I am not great at identifying sparrows unless they have some really distinguishable but I picked out a number of adult Chipping and White-crowned sparrows. I assumed many of the rest where younger with longish tails and traces of similarities in their facial markings.
Later I learned about two very similar birds to the Chipping Sparrow. The Brewer’s Sparrow is common lower down in sage brush habitat so maybe some of these families are spending time up here too. And the Timberline Sparrow which is the ideal candidate habitat wise but they are supposed to live further north in Canada.
Looking more shrubs and edges I spotted warblers, house wren, mountain chickadees and a vireo like bird. I saw a bird with hints of yellow in the right places for a yellow-rumpled but not the clear markings of a breeding adult. I made mental notes on the other things and when I consulted my guide later,three of the birds I saw appeared on the page for the Orange-crowned warbler. They all shared at least a smudge of yellow on the butt so I assumed there were mixed ages for this bird as well. And the vireo like bird was a ringer for a warbling vireo.
I also saw two humming birds, a female Broad-tailed and a male Calliope which made 3 life list birds for this hike plus the spectacle watching so many birds in one place.
Early the next morning I drove down the west side of the mountains with all the red rock wonder where I would be spending the couple few days. At the loop road I turned North to go through Castle Valley and rolled into Moab on 190. I had my one and only hotel reserved for the night by the Moab Brewery but much of the day was still ahead which gave me time to walk the town and get my bearings on how to spend my time here and then go on a couple shorter hikes.