 Tanya's Daily Scoop Covering the West Coast & the World CURRENTLY IN: MOAB, UTAH |  Elisa's Daily Scoop Covering Long Island & NYC Boroughs CURRENTLY IN: LONG ISLAND, NEW YORK |
| Happy Monday Everyone! AND Greetings from Moab, Utah!! We are back for more mountain biking madness... If you've been along for the ride here on Travelin' Cousins for a while then you'd know that Moab, Utah is a regular/annual stop for myself and Dave B. It's been great fun and one of our favorite mountain biking destinations... MOAB FUN IN 2014 PART 1 MOAB FUN IN 2014 PART 2 ADVENTURES IN THE SOUTHWEST 2015 MOAB FUN IN 2016 MOAB MARVELS 2017 MOAB FUN IN 2018 MOAB HERE I COME 2019 And in the coming days I will be keeping you posted on the blog and on our social media pages about our current 2020 visit here in Moab. But for now I'd like to briefly recap on the wonderful visit that we had at Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park yesterday. For starters as you know, I am pretty much a National Park junky! Well shame on me for not even having Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park on my radar!!!  At the entrance (c)travelincousins.com We decided that on our way from Crested Butte to Moab that we would go and check out Black Canyon of Gunnison National Park. Little did I know about this hidden gem... With striking sheer walls that are 2,250 feet from the canyon floor where if you could imagine the Empire State building standing at the bottom of the canyon that it would only reach slight past the half way mark to the top of these canyon walls!!  Gunnison Point (c)travelincousins.com  (c) travelincousins.com  On the lookout! (c)travelincousins.com  Fun with panos (c)travelincousins.com  Chasm Point (c)travelincousins.com  National Park Selfie (c)travelincousins.com  Posing at the Viewpoint (c)travelincousins.com  At Dragon Point (c)travelincousins.com  It was sure WINDY (c)travelincousins.com  Still windy and with the Gunnison River behind me (c)travelincousins.com  Cross Fissures that are 1 Billion years old!!! (c)travelincousins.com  The Dragon Fissures (c)travelincousins.com Rock formations in this park are some of the oldest exposed rock in the WORLD at 1 billion years old!!! We drove the entire south rim and spent the entire day exploring, trekking about and experiencing this well hidden, pretty difficult to get to and fairly new National Park... Although established as a National Monument in 1933 it wasn't established as a National Park until 1999. I hope that you've enjoyed the photographs and please find out more about this park in Elisa's column, where she shares 10 Facts about Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park. Now I'm off to go mountain biking in Moab. See you back here soon, -Travelin' Tanya | It's Monday Again!!! Hope you guys are all doing great! As you have been following over the past few days, I've been "virtually" traveling along with my dear cousin Tanya as she has made her way from SoCal to Las Vegas and onto Colorado, where she mountain biked Crested Butte and then journeyed to Black Canyon of The Gunnison National Park! I'm loving Tanya's scenic photos and the ones of her battling the winds on her Scoop today! It's been a blast making the "virtual trip" with her and following up her in-person travel adventures with some interesting facts! And today, I'll be doing more of the same with some interesting, historic facts about Black Canyon of The Gunnison National Park. But first... You guys know how I am always in the midst of binging one show or another on Netflix or Amazon Prime. Well, after Kelsey and I concluded our 8-movie Harry Potter binge watching adventure last week, we had to get right to it and start a new show. Yesterday, we began Schitt's Creek. Now, you know how it's rare for me to begin with a show at its incipiency. I'm usually a bit late to the party with my binge watching, but, honestly, I love it this way, so that I can just move right along, not having to wait for the new season.  Anyhoo, me and Kelsey got through the entire first season yesterday afternoon! It is pretty darn funny! I have always loved Eugene Levy and he is hysterical paired up with Catherine O'Hara in this series and the other movies they have starred in together throughout the years. After starting watching this, I'm really happy that it won so many Emmy Awards last week! Moving along... Let's get back to travel - and namely, to Colorado! 10 Facts about Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park  At South Rim of the Black Canyon (c) travelincousins.com 1. Located in western Colorado, the park contains 12 miles of the 48 mile long Black Canyon of the Gunnison River. 2. The Black Canyon of Gunnison was established as a National Monument on March 2, 1933 and re-designated a National Park on October 21, 1999. 3. The Civil Conservation Corps built the North Rim Road from 1933-1935 which includes 5 miles of roadway and five overlooks. This area is listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places as a historic district. 4. The Ute Indians had referred to the river as "much rocks, big water" and are known to have avoided the canyon out of superstition. 5. The Gunnison River drops an average of 34 feet per mile through the entire canyon, making it the 5th steepest mountain descent in North America.  Painted Wall Point at The South Rim of the Black Canyon (c) travelincousins.com 6. The first passenger train passed through the Black Canyon on August 13, 1882. The editor of the Gunnison Review Press wrote of it, "undoubtedly the largest and most rugged canyon in the world traversed by the iron horse...another such feat of railroad engineering probably cannot be found in the world, and there is probably no section of Colorado or of the whole country where such a varied and interesting lot of scenery can be found."[ 7. The Canyon owes its name to the fact that parts of the gorge only receive 33 minutes of sunlight a day, according to Images of America: The Black Canyon of Gunnison by Duane Vandenbusche. 8. At its narrowist point, the canyon is only 40 feet wide at the river. 9. According to author Duane Vandenbusche, "several canyons of the American West are longer and some are deeper, but none combine the depth, sheerness, narrowness, darkness and dread of the Black Canyon." 10. The Gunnison Tunnel was completed in 1909, and dedicated on September 23 by President William Howard Taft. The tunnel stretches a distance of 5.8 miles and cost nearly $3 million to construct. 26 men were killed during the four year undertaking. Well, my dear peeps, that's a wrap for today!! See ya back here on Wednesday for another addition of Walt Disney World Wednesday!! -Travelin' Elisa xoxo |
