This spring was dedicated to preparing our total water instrument to fly on the GV research aircraft. With some important deadlines ahead, I buckled down and put in an long string of late nights and working weekends. In early April, it dawned on me that the liliacs had bloomed, then wilted. I subsisted on quesadillas.
I met some important goals in mid-April and carved out a three-day weekend. There was no question where I would head: I'd been dreaming of visiting the Black Canyon since last fall. But first... I drove up through Leadville, stopped at Cache Creek to survey a public prospecting area, grabbed a burger in Buena Vista, then headed down the Arkansas to do some gold prospecting on some public land at Point Bar. I dug a pit along the riverbed and concentrated some black sands in a sluice box. I drove over Monarch Pass into a nice drainage at sunset, put the Tacoma into 4-Low and climbed up a steep road to a high, protected saddle. I was able to pull in great tunes from the little 100-watt transmitter at KWSB in Gunnison and relished some downtime in the mountains.
The next morning, I followed the Gunnison River to Curecanti, and carried my boat down to the outflow from Morrow Point Dam. From the dam, the Gunnison flows into a steep-walled canyon that dead-ends at the Crystal Dam. The water backed up from Crystal creates a 7-mile lake, only accessible by carrying a boat to a bench below the dam, and floating down a stretch of moving water. Great place for the Green Duck!
It's committing to paddle into a dead-end canyon that's fed by moving water. When I was confident that I could fight the current back up to the put-in, I threw in my camping gear, jumped aboard, and let the current catch my craft.
The steep walls met the water in cliffs or scree. I made camp in the only flat pad in the canyon, a designated site at the mouth of the Crystal Creek side drainage. It was a spectacular canyon and a pretty unique piece of country.
If the lake levels hold, I would like to haul back in with the jon boat.
