2026-6-4: To the Black Canyon on the Gunnison (3 maps & 20 photos)

“Gunnison” is a cool name. I don’t recall ever meeting another person with that last name.

Now, I’m no expert in the life of John Williams Gunnison. Details of his life in this post were quickly obtained from a Wikipedia article HERE. However, he did experience the growth of the United States of America in times that are so fascinating to me.

He was born in New Hampshire in 1812, and graduated from West Point in 1837. His military career would first take him to Florida where the army was fighting Seminoles. In the 1840’s he surveyed the Great Lakes area, and surveyed the border between Michigan’s Upper Peninsula and Wisconsin. In the winter of 1849 to 1850 he spent time in Salt Lake City, and ended up writing a book about the Mormons living off the water draining off the snowy tops of Utah’s high plateaus and mountains. Gunnison’s book The Mormons or Latter-Day Saints, in the Valley of the Great Salt Lake: A History of Their Rise and Progress, Peculiar Doctrines, Present Condition may not sound as exciting as Fifty Shades of Gray, but he was witnessing the establishment of a new and prosperous civilization almost like the world had never seen before.

(Yes, the story of the Mormons is fascinating,)

In 1853… well… I’ll just post the Wikipedia words here. They’re clear enough.

On May 3, 1853, he received orders to take charge of an expedition to survey a route for a Pacific railroad between the 38th and 39th parallels. The surveying party left St. Louis, Missouri n June 1853 and arrived by mid-October in Manti, Utah Territory, with Lieutenant E. G. Beckwith as assistant commander, Gunnison began the survey of a possible route, surveying areas across the Rocky Mountains and the Huerfano River through Cochetopa Pass, and by way of the present Gunnison and Green rivers to the Sevier River. His journey took him through the Tomichi Valley in Colorado, where the town of Gunnison is named in his honor. After crossing the Tomichi Valley, the survey team encountered the Black Canyon, carved by the Gunnison River which was also named in his honor. The team was forced to turn south to get around the canyon...

Gunnison then continued into the Great Basin Country of Western Utah where he was killed by Ute Indians on October 26, 1853. Certainly more things can be said of Mr. Gunnison’s life, and especially his times. Without going down too much of a tangent, I’ll just say I’m grateful that brave men like Gunnison went into the wilderness of the West to forge paths that we in this 21^st century of our Lord still enjoy. I’m grateful that men like Gunnison did their part to make that Manifest Destiny a reality. That Call of the West helped make America the greatest nation on earth, and modern revisionists who decry Manifest Destiny as evil are best ignored for their love evil which they call good, and woe unto those who call good evil and evil good.

Indeed, on this 4^th day of June in the year of our Lord 2026, the path that Gunnison and his survey followed south of that Black Canyon no doubt helped make US 50 a reality. From my campsite outside Silverton, I would take US 550 north, back through Ouray and Ridgway, to Montrose and go east on US 50 to Black Canyon on the Gunnison National Park.

In terms of photographic potential, I unequivocally put this National Park in my Top 10. That canyon is awesome. It’s deep, rugged and wild. The colors of its canyon walls aren’t all black. You can see its colors in the photos I’ll post in the subsequent blogs.

I first discovered the Black Canyon on a roadtrip in 2018. I came back to it in 2022. Now, another four years later, I was back again.

None of my 2018 photos remain. I got some good ones on the South Rim in 2022. I posted them below. However, I’d never been to the North Rim of the Gunnison Canyon, and that was to be my intention today.

The Gunnison is a tributary of the Colorado River, as the Dolores was too. You can see where the Gunnison is on the maps below.