Boiling Eggs at 9,000 Feet

Black Canyon of the Gunnison

 The last time we were here the snow was 10 feet deep and the Park Rangers said we could go to the overlooks if we had snow shoes. We went back to Gunnison and priced snow shoes and decided to wait for some summer day in the far future.

 I try to hard boil some eggs using my usual method for perfect hard boiled eggs and the centers are gooshy. I also ruin some wild rice trying to cook it for 45 minutes in my normal fashion.

 The problem, of course, is that water boils at 190F at 9,000 feet as compared to 212F at sea level. So the eggs and rice cook very differently at altitude. I seem to remember the Armstrong limit which finds that blood, tears, saliva and other bodily fluids boil at about 63,000 feet, and altitude above which unpressurised humans cannot survive more than a minute or two.

 The canyon is one of the steepest and deepest in the world. Parts of the canyon recieve only 33 minutes of sunlight a day.

 The Gunnison river drops 34 feet per mile on average compared with seven feet a mile in the Grand Canyon. The rock is extremely hard so that the fast flowing river gouges out only about an inch every hundred years. Geologists believe that the 2,000 foot deep black canyon has taken 2 million years to develop.

 We've been  crisscrossing  the Rocky Mountains for several days. Our highest altitude in the RV so far is 11,400 feet. This is the limit of the Complete Compensatory Stage of hypoxia, (5,000 - 11,400 ft). Visual sensitivity at night is decreased by 30 percent at 10,000 feet. Performance of new tasks may be impaired due to memory issues.When I was flying c-124s we had to go on oxygen at 10,000 feet.

 A diversion tunnel was completed bringing water to the Montrose Area. 26 men were killed during the 4 year undertaking. The tunnel was finally completed in 1909, stretching a distance of 5.8 miles and costing nearly 3 million dollars. At the time, the Gunnison Tunnel held the honor of being the world's longest irrigation tunnel. On September 23, President William Howard Taft dedicated the tunnel in Montrose.

To get 2,000 feet down to the Gunnison, you follow the East Portal Road, which has slopes up to 16 degrees and a vehicles length limit of 22 feet.

At the beginning of the 20th Century, the Gunnison canyon was thought to be impenetrable.  However, two men navigated the canyon in eleven days on a rubber air mattress to survey the canyon in preparation for building the diversion dam and tunnel.

 Porcupines gnaw chunks out of the ancient Pinion trees. They seldom completely encircle the trees and kill them.

 This Pinion tree is about 800 years old. The Pinion Jay hides the Pinion nuts far and wide and can remember about 80 percent of where these were located. The other 20 percent are well situated to become new trees.

 Mr. and Mrs. Phred at the end of a long hike up and down hills at 9,000 feet...Notice my new "Mothers of Invention...Freak Out!" T-shirt....uber cool...

In case you didn't believe me about the altitude, Mrs. Phred took this picture.

The Gunnison diversion dam/tunnel is accessible via East Portal Road which is on the South Rim of the canyon. Although the tunnel itself is not visible, the diversion dam can be seen from the campground. The tunnel is ten feet high, eight feet wide and 5.8 miles long. Rafting or tubing below the campground is highly not recommended for amateurs.

Black Canyon of the Gunnison

Montrose, Colorado

Whoa!...I'm dangerous. I figured out how to set the camera to take a picture in ten seconds so now I just set it on a rock and get Mrs. Phred to stand in front with me. Problem: she didn't like her hair so I just blew up my ugly face...I don't care.


The Gunnison river loses more elevation in 48 miles than the Mississippi loses in 1500. It used to slam though the canyon at the rate of 12,000 cubic feet a seconds in Spring with 3 million horsepower. This allowed the river to carve an extremely steep canyon though very hard rock at a depth of nearly 3,000 feet. The upper portions of the river now have three dams which created high mountain lakes stocked with many species of trout, Dolly Varden and salmon. The lake region is administered by the National Park Service and is called the Curecanti National Recreation Area.

We look down into the steep canyon and eat our lunch in on a picnic table provided by the National Park Service. In 1901 William Torrence and Abraham Lincoln Fellows took a rubber mattress for a raft, arranged to be supplied at various points from the rim, and were able to make their way through the canyon -- 33 miles in nine days. The river is much less wild now that dams have been built upriver. However, the river rapids are still rated class V to unnavigable..



This cliff is 2300 feet tall. The Empire State building would come halfway to the top. The igneous intrusions make a pretty picture. It's called the Painted Wall. The park is mostly a series of overlooks about 200 yards apart. Sometimes you walk 400-600 yards to look into the chasm. What did Nietzsche say?... "If you look long enough into the void the void begins to look back through you. "

Peacocks Can't Fly Above 9,000 Feet

Curecanti National Recreation Area, Colorado

The altitude here is 9,300 feet. It started to snow just after we arrived. The temperature rises to about 35 during the day and drops to around 15 at night.


The campgrounds are officially closed but you can camp in some of them if you wish. We found one to move to today with a lovely view of a lake and mountains. The picnic tables are buried in snow, but they’ve plowed the road.


The Gunnison river loses more elevation in 48 miles than the Mississippi loses in 1500. It used to slam though the canyon at the rate of 12,000 cubic feet a seconds in Spring with 3 million horsepower. This allowed the river to carve an extremely steep canyon though very hard rock at a depth of nearly 3,000 feet.


The upper portions of the river now have three dams which created high mountain lakes stocked with many species of trout, Dolly Varden and salmon. The lake region is administered by the National Park Service and is called the Curecanti National Recreation Area.


The most dramatic 14-mile stretch of the river is a National Park: The Black Canyon of the Gunnison. We talked to two park rangers yesterday who were shoveling snow off an observation overlook. They told us that normally the trails would have been open two weeks ago, but the snowfall this year was 150% of normal.


The campground cat at the last place was very friendly. It was furry and fat and seemed to live outdoors with the coyotes. Here it is eating a breakfast of salmon salad (salmon, eggs, onions and mayonnaise). It seemed to want to leave with us but Mrs. Phred and I decided against acquiring a companion.


We can go on any of the trails, they say, with snowshoes. Mrs. Phred and I have never tried snowshoes. We both grew up in Florida. I ask if snowshoes can be rented locally and got the name a sporting goods store in Montrose. Maybe? Here are a few pictures of the area.