This day started very early in the morning as we headed west on I-70 towards the Colorado National Monument. This is located near the city of Grand Junction, Colorado. The monument actually has an elevated roadway across the canyon which contains the most scenic view points. It’s kind of similar to the Grand Canyon but on a much smaller measure. There are various rock wall pits throughout the valley but the scenery is absolutely gorgeous.
At the visitor center you can do a short quarter mile walk around a peninsula near the rim for some great photo opportunities near the ledge. This can be seen by Ashley’s photo standing at the top here. This was a big day so we knew we had to get on the road again quick so once we saw the rim and the primary attractions, we headed out of the park and headed south towards Montrose, Colorado.
We wanted to get to the West side of the Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park. This canyon was created by a river, and it is actually the depth of two Empire State buildings stacked on top of each other! I know that this park would be something special to see.
There are many features of the park, such as the Artists Wall which features marble and granite lines throughout the cliff and their various viewpoints looking straight down into the cavernous canyon. This wall almost looks like a painting, thus the name. The mighty Gunnison river cuts right through it and it is a sight to behold looking almost 3000 feet below at this small river, knowing that the river is still 50 yds wide. This river also has carved the canyon almost 2000 feet deep! This is a jaw-dropping sight but once again we had to be on our way so we headed east towards the Curricante National Recreation Area.
Once we crossed the large lake recreation area we headed south towards Lake City, CO on highway 149, which crosses over Slumgullion pass. This was a beautiful mountain pass that featured rivers in the valley and various animals can be seen throughout the drive. This was the only road between Lake City and Creede, CO.
Now I had been here in the past many times with my Grandparents a while back. Because of this I knew of North Clear Creek Falls on this road. This is a gorgeous stop along the route, and I believe anyone in the vicinity should take a little break at this stop over the pass. This is a waterfall that we tried to get to but we initially passed the first entrance. Because of that we took a secondary road which meant we actually had to do a back road as we had passed the main entrance to the falls. The waterfall when seen can be extremely beautiful. Other times of the year the falls may be frozen.
The day was getting into the early evening as we approached Creede. We decided to stop at a sports bar and have dinner in Creede that night. This was a new sports bar, which had been built since last time I was out there. I had visited this town before which is why I decided to take Ashley to it on the way to Durango. After dinner, and a beer, we decided to head south to Durango, which was still about a two hour drive, but was our final destination.
In order to get to Durango from where we were, we were to go over the famed Wolf Creek Pass. At the bottom of the west side of the pass, I had completely forgot about the amazing waterfalls called Treasure Falls. We passed this, and with just enough daylight, we were able to see a bonus spot on our drive into Durango.
The Lodge at Tamarron where my friends had a timeshare, was our final destination for the night, and we were ecstatic to be there, after camping it the last week! It didn’t hurt that it was the presidential suite, which as you can imagine was a dramatically different setting the than what we were used to on this trip. This was a nice bonus. We decided to finally do laundry as well and get everything organized as we were going to be there for two nights. Time to rest!
June 11 Expenses
3.77 early snack
24.15 gas
5 snack
26.34 groceries
40 dinner in creede
40 hotel
8.34 ice creams
Total – 147.60
Rifle to Durango – MILES DRIVEN 409 (+ 30 for wrong turns and drive through park)