Back in Utah

Trip Start Jun 30, 2008
1
19
22
Trip End Jul 22, 2008


Loading Map
Map your own trip!
Map Options
Show trip route
Hide lines
shadow

Flag of United States  , Utah,
Thursday, July 17, 2008

Travelling a long way today, we stopped off at Black Hills Canyon of the Gunnison. Reported in all the write ups of it being a canyon that brings about vertigo in all persons, it being extremely high, this was not the case for either of Jude nor myself. It was nevertheless extremely high with a pretty powerful river below cutting into the rock. One could hear the thunder of the river many, many feet below so one could only imagine what it would be like in the actual gorge itself. We only had time to do the south rim since time is of the essence at this point!

From there, we may our way to Ouray. Now THIS is fantastic. Quite spectacular scenery where the cliffs seem to loom over you as you navigate your way along skinny roads with the sides dropping away and of course, no guard rails to stop cars going over if something nasty should happen. We figure the philosophy here is, "we build the road, it's up to you to stay on it". Ultimately we ended up going through Silverton and then down to Durango and Cortez, the last two places of which we have been before but we actually had no choice because we needed to make our way over to Utah on our way back to San Francisco. Our routes are pretty limited in that regard.

Stopped off at Blanding - crazy to think a little under a year ago we were here having my teeth fixed after Charlie chipped a tooth in Monument Valley. A pity we did not arrive in time for her to have a check up!

Not many choices of hotels in Blanding which, we noticed, seemed to be predominantly Navajo. This was noticed last time we were here. Again, even though we were here previously - in fact less than a year ago - we had to choose between coming to Blanding, or going through Moab, both places of which we had been however since we wanted to go to Natural Bridges monument and as well Glen Canyon, we had little choice but to revisit. Not a problem - just a quick overnighter anyway.
Print this entry