Colorado

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On the lower part of the ridge, lush vegetation up to head high. About this point we started to get a light rain, which intensified at the trailhead; creating an "interesting" muddy drive home

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Orange Sneezeweed

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Leafy Jacob's Ladder

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Green Gentian, maybpe five feet tall, one of the more impressive flowers along the trail

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Wild rose

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Five veined sunflower

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Joe and Jeb coming down the ridge. Note the darkening clouds in the background!

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Bryan, going under another blowdown

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Steve, negotiating a down tree in style

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Carolina Bugbane

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Pretty Jacob's Ladder

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Nipple Mountain and Blackhead Peak

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Back through Quartz Window, which is just over 12,000 ft high

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Case's Fitweed along the trail

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Mike photographing some Columbine

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The backside of Quartz Window

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Our lunch stop, with Blackhead in the background

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Colorado Columbine growing in a rocky crevice

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Bill starting across one of two remnant snow banks. The transition from mud to snow and back was interesting

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Steve and Doug taking a break before the final push to the pass

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Purple Fringe

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Our view of Quartz Window from the ridge, we will pass through the jagged teeth at the low spot.

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A final view of the West Elk Mountains, across the sage and juniper of the mesa above Black Canyon. After another fine happy hour, we returned to Pagosa the following day.

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Some of the cacti were red, some yellow. Same species, I believe

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Masses of blooming cactus

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Some of us completed our loop via the Upland trail, which is remarkably different, taking us past blooming prickly pear cactus in a high desert environment

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Panorama of the canyon as we returned to the rim on the Oak Flats trail

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Canyon wall details

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The Rim trail connects to the Oak Flat trail. This is not an accurately named trial, as there is nothign flat about it! We dropped about 400 feetin, but were still over 1500 feet from the bottom of the canyon at this point. View looking into Black Canyon

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Joe and Steve peering into the abyss

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On our last day at Black Canyon, we hiked from the campground along the Rim trail.

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At Warner Point, the adventurous can scramble out to a more exposed pinnacle. I was not among that category! After all, I didn't want to miss happy hour!

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View of the West Elk mountains and Black Canyon from the Warner Point trail

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Sue is trying out the lounging rock

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Sue and Roz reading about the canyon at one of the viewpoints

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In mid-day, it's tough to capture the full depth of the canyon, about 2000 feet at this point.

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Detail of the Painted Wall

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Looking down at the Gunnison River, with the famous Painted Wall on the other side.

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Black Canyon

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Joe, taking a rim-side photo of the canyon.

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Returning to Black Canyon National Park, we spent a couple of hours as tourists, visiting several of the canyon viewpoints

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Rocky Mountain Parnassian, spotted as we hiked out of Lion Gulch

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We had our lunch at this expansive meadow near the top of Lion Gulch. About a 3.7 mile hike, round trip.

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Scarlet gilia