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The Black Canyon of the Gunnison
This is our destination today.
We take all our time this morning, as it is advised to go there when the sun is high in he sky.
Hollowed out by the Gunnison River which slowly eroded the hard rocks left at the end of the primary era, the cliffs of the canyon reach 800 meters in height and at the narrowest place, south and north rim are only 335 meters away from each other.
So, the sun only lights the canyons a couple of hours per day.
We drive along the south rim, hiking to differents overlooks.
Although the trails are fringed with fences, one has to stay right in ghe middle not to get dizzy.
It's very impressive and sometimes scaring.
It is so steep that we're not sure the pictures and the videos we've taken will pay the right tribute to this unique canyon.
Walk in Durango historic center.
The style of the little shops plunges us into a Western athmosphere. To confirm this feeling, an old steam train with its old fashioned wagons, leaves from here everyday for a 3 hours trip in the mountain up to Silverton.
Personally,we choose to go there with our camper.
Once more we drive through very beautifull landscape with flamming autumn trees.
Silverton, the train terminus, lays at an altitude of 2835 meters.
Another western style village, where we expect to see cowboys at every corner.
To be honest, we will only see tourists...
Close to this lovely village , there's a Gold Mine that we entended to visit.
Bad luck ! The guide has to leave early this afternoon.
As we don't want to spend the night here because of he night frozen temperatures, we drive down to the valley to Montrose.
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Mesa Verde National Park
Mesa Verde is shrouded in mystery. It's here that a civilization of Ancestral
Puebloan Indian appears to have vanished in AD 1300, leaving behind a complex civilization of cliff dwellings.
The Ancestral Puebloans inhabited Mesa Verde for more than 700 years.
(500 to 1300 AD)
Mesa Verde has over 4700 archelogical sites, including 600 cliff dwellings.
For he first 6 centuries, the indians primarily lived on the mesa tops. It was not until the final 75 to 100 years that they constructed and lived in the cliff dwellings for which Mesa Verde is best known.
Very unusual for us, we wake up early to buy tickets for a ranger-led tour.
Only one out of the 3 main sites is open and we get a ticket to visit "Balcony House" at 12:00.
In between, we drive through the park, discovering these impressive dwellings.
The guided tour is fascinating and so is our guide.
The tour makes up climb10 meters high ladders and crawl under narrow tunnels.
Relaxing day in a great bivouac close to Mesa Verde
ROAD BOOK 019
MAVROS ODYSSEE