The Black Canyon of the Gunnison's unique and spectacular landscape was formed slowly by the action of water and rock scouring down through hard Proterozoic crystalline rock.
No other canyon in North America combines the narrow opening, sheer walls, and startling depths offered by the Black Canyon of the Gunnison.
While the people of the Ute bands knew of the Black Canyon of the Gunnison, it was an obscure geographic feature to explorers for hundreds of years. The Spanish were the first Europeans to canvas western Colorado with two expeditions, one led by Juan Rivera in 1765, and the other by Fathers Dominguez and Escalante in 1776. Both were looking for passage to the California coast, and both passed by the canyon.
Many expeditions on record have been experienced here, beginning in 1853. But the most noted expedition was that of John Williams Gunnison, for which this national park was named.
Sheer black walls of schist and gneiss plummet as much as 2,700 feet along the 53-mile stretch of narrow gorge known as the Black Canyon. The 14 miles that lie within the park are like a raw cut in the Earth's crust, exposing geologic viscera and illuminating millions of years of history. On the canyon floor, the Gunnison River rips through the gorge as it did 30 million years ago, when it began carving a chasm into the hard black rock of the Gunnison Uplift.
The entire Gunnison Gorge is comprised of three conservations areas, the Gunnison Gorge National Conservation Area on the north, The Black Canyons of the Gunnison National Park in the middle and the Curecanti National Recreation Area on the south. All of these areas are continuous making up a very impressive over 70 miles long by nearly 20 miles wide at its widest part. There are not many National Parks and Monuments/Conservations area like this in the USA.
Nearly every form of recreation is afforded here to satisfy most everyone that visits here.
For the photographer, this is not the easiest place to photograph. The deep dark canyons don’t allow very much light to reach down to the bottom of the canyons. I found very early and very late, as well as overcast skies to be a bit better at taming the contrast found here.
I camped for two days at each of the two rims, north and south allowing me to take advantage of the better lighting conditions. Of course very long hikes were out of the question, but I could just imagine what it would have been like to have hiked to the bottom of theses canyons for some really interesting photographic images. I’ll leave that task to you.
Of my bucket list of places to go to, I would surely leave this one open to go back to someday. The immense numbers of photographic compositions that are available are virtually endless with every turn, even at the same location/overlook.
This is truly a beautiful National Park and I am glad that I finally made it here and can highly recommend the breath taking views, even if your not a gifted photographer. I only mention “gifted”; as this is a very challenging place to make great images, but I fell it can be accomplished, given the right lighting conditions.
For more information of the Black Canyons of the Gunnison and its surrounding conservation areas, go to these websites:
www.nps.gov/blca/index.htm
www.gorp.com/parks-guide/travel-ta-black-canyon-of-the-gu...
View Large On Black for more details in the walls of the canyons.I had to usethe Flickr Picnik feature to slavage the exposure.
This is a 3 image HDR,using only 2 images using Dynamic Photo HDR 5 and quite a bit of this and that to bring out the details.
Camera, Canon EOS 5D Mark II
Lens, Canon 24-70 f 2.8”L
Exposure, 0.6 & 4.0 sec.
Aperture, f14 Lens Focal Length,24mm
ISO Speed, 100
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Another image of this dark secret NP.I debated as to leave in part of that bla sky, but when you scroll down to crop it out you loose the peaks, which IMHO really makes this suck(MJ). So some times ya just have to live with what Mother Nature gives us and make the best of it.
View Large On Black for all of the details
Camera, Canon EOS 5D Mark II
Lens, Canon 24-70 f 2.8”L
Exposure, 1/20 sec.
Aperture, f16 Lens Focal Length,52mm
ISO Speed, 100
Polarizing Filter
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I really thought this place was awesome, but once again a little difficult to find the right composition with the correct lighting. I guess camping there for 4 days allows for some slack time when things just don't go as planned.
I do a lot of pre-scouting (at any location where I will saty for multiple days)and park map notations as to best time of day for various locations and hope that the lighting gods are in my favor. It works some of the time and the others...?? well, I just don't get the image but I do take in the beauty of the scene.
The Gunnison River from up on top of the canyon rims looks minuscule in comparison to the vast size of the canyon walls. I would bet that the number of rapids there would make for some great images, but only if I had a helicopter take me down,drop me off and picked me up again. Hiking down there is now out of the question for me.
A little tidbit of information: In just 48 miles in the Black Canyons the Gunnison River loses more elevation in feet than the 1500 mile Mississippi River. The power of the Gunnison enables this river to erode through the tough rock of the canyons,thus carving out what we see today.
The river drops an average of 96 feet per river mile run in this national park. It drops 480 feet in one two-mile stretch.
Once again, my images are only licensed for reproduction and web use by directly contacting me. Please do not use them yourself or through any other organization without my expressed written permission.
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Camera, Canon EOS 5D Mark II
Lens, Canon 24-70 f 2.8”L
Lens Focal Length, 27mm
Exposure, 1/13 sec.
Aperture, f 22
ISO Speed, 400
Polarizing Filter
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At 2300 ft elevation, the Painted Walls is the highest cliff in Colorado. If the Empire State Building stood on the canyon floor, it would reach slightly more than half way to the top of the canyon rim.
The patterns that inspired the name Painted Walls were created more than a billion years ago when molten rock was squeezed (intruded) into fractures and joints in the existing rock, then cooled and hardened.
Unlike a painting, these patterns are 3-dimensional. If you were to slice off a section of the cliff wall, an entirely different pattern would be revealed.
View Large On Black
Camera, Canon EOS 7D
Lens, Canon 100-400 f4.5-5.6 ”L”,IS
Lens Focal Length, 100 mm
Exposure, 1/25 sec.
Aperture, f 4.5
ISO Speed, 200
Polarizing Filter
Tags: gorges western-landscapes parks national-parks colorado canyons black-canyons-of-gunnison-national-park detail-studies audio/visual-photo-presentations jmwnaturesimages.com photo-tour-guide photo-tours professional-photographer photo-workshops
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Since I don't normally shoot directly into the sun, I thought that this was rather a cool image. A bit artsy and generally not me, but I shot it anyway.
View Large On Black
Camera, Canon EOS 5D Mark II
Lens, Canon 24-70 f 2.8 ”L"
Lens Focal Length, 40mm
Exposure, 1.3 sec.
Aperture, f 14
ISO Speed, 100
Tags: western-landscapes sunsets river digital-art colorado black-canyons-of-gunnison-national-park audio/visual-photo-presentations jmwnaturesimages.com photo-tour-guide photo-tours professional-photographer photo-workshops
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