After our night at Maroon Bells, we left the next day for a little known national park called Black Canyon of the Gunnison River. Though not as large, Black Canyon is much steeper than the Grand Canyon and scared me more than a few times looking over the edge at the overlooks along the trails. The park ranger told us about a cool trail at the bottom of the canyon following the river, so we hiked there most of the day, including a precarious portion where we had to climb back up into the side of the canyon on unstable rocks to get around a bend in the river. We also saw a beaver up close and chased him around the rocks and water's edge for a little while, until he became annoyed and jumped in the river and swam away. I'm pretty sure the beaver enjoyed that escapade as much as I did.

 

In the middle of some otherwise uninteresting scenery, Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park.

A cool looking tree on the rim of Black Canyon. When we saw it, we both knew we had to include it in a picture somehow.

Here you can see the start of our trail, the end of the canyon, a cloud and a half, and endless possibilities.

Though it's dangerous, it is always worth it to try to take pictures while balancing on a shaky rock above a 150 foot cliff.

After climbing down a dangerous rock slide, we made it back to the river's edge. A bit of a misnomer, rock slides aren't quite as fun as they sound.

If I were creative, I'd probably have an epiphany here and come up with some sort of great significance of this cloud formation...don't hold your breath on that one.

I think this is Sunset Point, or something to that effect.