Gunnison Gorge National Conservation Area | Sunday, May 8, 2022
After spending yesterday morning on the Gunnison River in the Dominguez – Escalante National Conservation Area, I decided to head out early this morning to get in a couple of short hikes along the rim of the Gunnison Gorge since I’ve wanted to spend more time exploring this area. I left home in the dark and made my way through Delta to Olathe and then headed east into the Gunnison Gorge National Conservation Area where I stopped to take a short hike up the Eagle Valley Trail just after sunrise to start the day.
Here are a couple different views from the Eagle Valley Trail as the sun was coming up this morning.
While this is also a motorcycle and mountain bike trail, I enjoyed the hike early in the morning before anyone else showed up with their motors.
The trail passes through a short section of narrows that is pretty cool.
This large clay hill was looking nice in the morning light when I returned to the trailhead.
After returning to my Jeep I drove over to the Duncan Trailhead so I could hike parts of both the Duncan Trail and Bighorn Trail which follow closely along the rim of the Gunnison Gorge.
The Duncan Trail
Although you can follow the Duncan Trail all the way down to the Gunnison River, I didn’t feel like doing that today, so I just walked over to an overlook of the gorge right before the trail started it’s steep descent.
Along The Rim
Looking down to the Gunnison River below.
The Bighorn Trail offered many nice views of the Gunnison Gorge from a couple different overlook areas.
Black Canyon Layers
Here’s one last view of the Gunnison Gorge Wilderness as I hiked back to the trailhead and then headed home before lunchtime.
