Colorado Parkin’ Day 1 – Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument, Curecanti National Recreation Area, & Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park

May 20, 2023

It is just about time for an adventure! After a few years of driving incredible mileage across Wyoming to go to Yellowstone, it dawned on me to maybe spend that same time driving to southern Colorado and knocking out the National Park Service units down in that area. Outside of some trips I barely remember as a kid, this would be unexplored territory. In November I made my camping reservations six months out, solidifying a week-long adventure for end of May. Time to get a start on using up that vacation time that I will otherwise lose at the end of the year!

Under smokey skies (thanks, Alberta) I left Cheyenne about 6:30am for an early start on the 410 mile drive that would take over seven hours. I could have headed straight for Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park and shaved a decent amount of time off the trip, but I opted to swing down through Colorado Springs and stop at Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument first. Who does like an urban waltz down I-25 through the Denver metro area to begin a trip to the outdoors, amIright?!

My 58th NPS unit, Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument preserves one of the world’s richest fossil beds. Plants, insects, and spiders make up a bulk of the fossils, along with petrified redwood tree stumps. No dinosaurs to be found – these fossil beds are from the Eocene epoch, approximately 34 million years ago (that’s a good 30 million years more recent than the dinosaurs!). Sometimes people grumble about all the NPS units dedicated to fossil beds, but personally I love learning about the history of earth, even if dinosaurs are not involved (to be fair, I grumble about all the battlefield units NPS has, so I guess we all have our interests that appeal to us).

I parked and gathered my three passport stamp books and headed to the visitor center. You must show an interagency pass (such as America the Beautiful) or pay the fee upon entering. I briefly wandered through the impressive visitor center exhibits, which detail a lot of the geology and paleontology of the area, before heading back to the car and ditching my goodies.

Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument has fourteen miles of hiking trails, but since I had a long travel day, I opted for the shorter loops that leave from the visitor center, the Ponderosa and Petrified Forest Loops. These two loops combined came out to about 1.7 miles and took me 45 minutes to wander through. I probably could’ve done it faster, but I kept stopping to inhale big breaths of pine scented area and to marvel at getting to spend a week outdoors.

First stop of the morning complete, I continued west on US Highway 24 on the search for a place to stop and make a sandwich. Unfortunately the Wilkerson Pass Visitor Center was still closed for the season (the downside of pre-Memorial Day Weekend travel), but I found a large pullout at the boundary of the Pike National Forest to stop and fix me a sandwich. It is all about the tailgate sandwiches!

Soon I’d join US Highway 285 on a familiar trek down into the Arkansas River Valley, with the cloud-covered Sawatch 14ers in front of me, and over Monarch Pass to Gunnison. I spent five years in a row racing the Gunnison Growler mountain bike race, so this is a familiar and favorite drive of mine. I made a super disappointing stop at the gift shop at the top of Monarch Pass. What was an amazing, kitschy place a year before now has lost its character and seems so commercial. I legit was so disappointed in the remodel and change in business model I didn’t even use the restrooms, and headed back out the door!

Continuing west out of Gunnison put me into more unfamiliar territory, as I had only been through here once last spring on the grand Utah adventure. Yay for new roads! I stopped into the Elk Creek Visitor Center for Curecanti National Recreation Area since it was closed the previous time through in 2022, and had a great chat with the ranger about adventures, favorite spots in Yellowstone, and how to avoid animal attacks (not petting the wildlife is a good place to start!).

The rain started when I left the visitor center, thwarting a chance of hiking out to the Dillion Pinnacles, so I settled for some photos before continuing on. Heavy rain would plague me right until making the turn towards the south rim side of Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park.

Receiving National Park status in 1999 after being a National Monument since 1933, Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park is a beauty. Hell, spoiler alert – it was my favorite national park of the trip! This area preserves the Black Canyon carved by the Gunnison River. Because the canyon is so steep and narrow, parts of the canyon only receive a small bit of sunshine a day, giving the canyon its name. You can visit both sides, but not easily… it is about a three hour drive to go from the south rim to the north rim! So sadly my trip would just be to the south rim (this time!).

After showing my pass, I headed to the South Rim Campground, where I would be staying for two nights. Spots become reservable six months in advance, so I had my campsite for half a year! Which was good, as the campground filled this evening. I quickly found my site, A7, and took to setting up camp before heading to the visitor center for passport stamps, a junior ranger book, and some quick tastes of the canyon views before adventuring more the next day. Oh, and I learned from overhearing the park ranger that black bears are “just oversized raccoons, and nothing to worry about.” Ha! (I will say the bear spray I kept in my tent was not really for predators of the bear variety on this trip, if you catch my drift. But I did have bear spray with me and did make sure I kept clean campsites and utilized the bear boxes and my car for storage.)

Gunnison Point Overlook is right behind the visitor center, and definitely introduces one to the awe inspiring views of the Black Canyon. I marveled in the scene, getting excited for what the next day would have in store for me as I’d hike along the rim and also venture along South Rim Road to all the other overlooks.

Back to my campsite, it was time for a fajita feast and working on my junior ranger book. It was a long day of driving, and I was exhausted, but excited for my first night in my tent in 2023. It also got me thinking… It dawned me that I had not traveled solo since my Yellowstone trip in 2021. I went all of 2022 (and the start of 2023) doing big adventures with a companion. In many ways, I was relishing being on my own and only having to answer to myself, but in a way it also kind of felt a bit lonely.

Stats:

• 410 miles driven
• 9,569 steps / 6.1 miles walked
• 3 NPS units
  • Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument – $10
  • Curecanti National Recreation Area – Free
  • Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park – $30
  • **I have an annual America the Beautiful Pass, so no entry fees had to be paid
• Gas stops
  • Divide, CO: $3.59/gallon
• Campsite
  • South Rim Campground
    • Site A7
    • $16 (total was $32 for two nights)