Day 39: Black Canyon, Mesa Verde National Parks

Wednesday, Oct 12, 2022 

Got ready early, had my breakfast and then headed out from the AirBnb in Montrose back to the visitor center of Black Canyon of the Gunnison. 

The visitor center is the trailhead of the Gunnison Route Trail, a very steep trail down the canyon wall to the river at the bottom. Reached there around 8:30am, filled up my water bottles and got ready for the hike. The rapid descent of 2000 feet in less than a mile over steep boulders, loose rock and scree is a heart pounding, somewhat scary hike. In one short stretch, there is a cable to grab onto, but other parts of the trail seemed harder and had no support.

It is also mostly an unmarked trail and several stories about people making the wrong turn. I had downloaded the AllTrails route, which was quite useful. I also took pictures at several places on the way, where I might make the wrong turn on the way back up.

I breathed a sigh of relief when I could see and hear the river not too far away. I also met a couple of other of people heading down, which was reassuring.

Once I reached the river bank, the views were spectacular and quickly made me forget the stressful scramble down to the river.

 Met a fellow hiker at the river, who was also doing a road trip in a Tesla. We exchanged some stories and tips.  

After spending an hour along the river, I hiked back up to the visitor center. It was less stressful than the hike down, but still a lot of hard work because of steep uphill climb.  

The drive to my next destination for the day, Mesa Verde National Park was very scenic, winding its way through the south Colorado mountains. Went through the ski resorts of Telluride and Mountain Village. The fall colors along the way were even better than yesterday.The snow capped peaks are a great contrast to the golden trees below. 

 

I reached Mesa Verde National Park visitor center around 3:30pm. This park is famous for its ancient, but well preserved cliff dwellings of Native Americans from 800 years ago. 

I had tried but had been unable to get a reservation for any of the guided tours.  I was hoping to get some last minute, walk-in tickets but no such luck. The helpful forest ranger suggested trying online at recreation.gov again. As luck would have it, I found one slot available for a 2pm tour the next day. I promptly booked it, even though this meant I would leave Mesa Verde much later than originally planned.

I drove all along the Mesa Top Ruins road and was able to view a few of these beautiful cliff dwellings from a distance as the sun set. 

I stayed the night at the Far View Lodge, which is in the middle of the park in a a very remote, but beautiful location. This is the first time during this trip that I stayed at a national park lodge. Many of the national parks have these beautiful lodges at the perfect locations, deep inside the parks. They are somewhat expensive, but I think the experience is well worth it.

For me the additional motivation to stay at the lodge was the availability of a Tesla destination charger, which was a must have because there are no superchargers close by.  The Lodge did not have good WiFi and spotty cell phone network, so I was cutoff from the rest of the world. I wish there had been a better connection to my sweetheart on this special day ...

The raw numbers for the day:

• 206 miles driving, 12300 steps walking
• 0 Tesla supercharger stops, overnight level 2 charging at hotel
  
• 1 state - Colorado