May 11-15, 2026
It was an easy drive from Mesa Verde to Black Canyon. Montrose, Co is the major city outside of the National Park but I stayed in Cimarron at Black Canyon RVPark and Campground. A really nice, small Campground.
I go set up and headed to the National Park.
This is the deepest, steepest, and narrowest canyon in North America.
The visitor center is on the south rim and there is a scenic drive with multiple pull offs for over looks. And there is a north rim about 1.5 hour drive. The ranger told me the north rim is much more impressive.
I drove the scenic on the south rim a bit before heading into Montrose for supplies.
The North Rim
The next day I headed to the north rim. You need to drive about 5 miles on dirt road and the there is also a dirt road scenic drive on the north rim. Here is the “The Narrows” overlook.
And the “Big Island”.
“Island Peaks”.
And “Kneeling Camel”.
Didn’t get the name of this one.
After the drive and a lunch at a picnic table I hiked to Exclamation Point.
Back to the South Rim
The next day I went back to the South Rim and drove the scenic road to the end stopping at all of the overlooks. The first overlook, before the visitor center, is Tomichi Point.
A few stops after the visitor center is Chasm View.
Then Painted Wall.
And Cedar Point.
Dragon Point.
And the last one – Sunset View.
The East Portal
For a while I was confused why they called the Western edge of the park the East Portal. It turns out that between 1905 and 1910 a tunnel was dug to through the black canyon cliffs to move water from the Gunnison River to the fields of the Uncompahgre Valley. So the East Portal is the eastern part of the tunnel. The east portal road takes you down the canyon to the the river.
There is a campground on the river and it is open to fishing. There were several people fly fishing.
