We concluded our national park visits during our Labor Day motorcycle trip with Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park. Black Canyon is known for its incredibly deep and steep cliffs as well as its very narrow widths – some so much so that only half an hour of sunlight reaches the canyon floor each day!

The weather ended up being all over the place the day of our visit, which forced us to be a bit creative in how we explored the park. In part due to the weather and in part because we were simply wowed by the experience, we ended up spending more time in the park than I anticipated.

If you only want to drive the south rim and stop at the more accessible overlooks, I think you could easily keep your visit to a couple hours. If you want to take time at each overlook and add in some hikes, a half-day is more like it.

We arrived late in the morning after our three-hour ride up from Cortez, Colorado, where we spent time in Mesa Verde National Park. The sun was overhead and it ended up being really hot toward the end of our time in the park. There is almost no cover on the south rim trails and overlooks so if you also typically prefer to avoid the sun and heat, I’d make sure to arrive earlier than we did!

Upon entering the park, we decided to ride straight to High Point at the end of the south rim’s seven-mile drive and then make our way back to the entrance via the 12 overlooks along the way.

As luck would have it, we arrived at the turnaround point, climbed out of our gear, and started to hike the Warner Point Nature Trail when black clouds rolled in and it started to rain. We scrambled back to the bikes, and rode to the nearby Sunset View overlook, hoping it would let up so we could continue our route.

Initially it did, and we were able to take a few drippy photos at this iconic viewpoint. However, another round of rain quickly set in with no end in sight. We decided to alter course and ride back to the South Rim Visitor Center to dry out and enjoy the exhibits and gift shop until the storm passed through.

Once the storm concluded, we decided to check out the hikes and viewpoints accessible right from the visitor center instead of riding back out to Warner Point and attempting our route again.

First was the Rim Rock Trail, a two-mile roundtrip hike along the south rim from the visitor center to the campground. While we didn’t encounter too many people on this trail, we did enjoy great views of the north rim cliffs and the layered view of the canyon from Tomichi Point.

From the porch of the visitor center, you can catch a short path that winds down to Gunnison Point Overlook, which has even better visibility of the north rim cliffs and Gunnison River. We could also see the thunderstorm continuing its journey east in the distance.

Although the light was heading in the right direction for our north-east facing views, it was quite tricky to capture the magnitude of the canyon and the intricacies of the cliffs, which have interesting colors and textures.

Whatever relief from the heat the storm provided, it was rapidly waning as we geared up and rode back to the other viewpoints we’d missed.

Although we’ve become much more adept with our gear, it’s still a bit of a time-consuming process to park our motorcycles, get out of our suits and helmets, change out of our riding boots into hiking shoes or tennis shoes, store everything away, and grab the hats and bags and other items we need to go explore. Thus, we try to find centralized places to park so we can walk to multiple sites at once instead of having to go through all of the steps to load/unload every time we relocate.

This proved to be challenging along the south rim road, which is not ideal for walking. There’s limited visibility around many of the curves and no berm. Nevertheless, we decided to pick a couple spots to park and walk to the other nearby viewpoints. While many of the overlooks looked to be grouped together on the map, we quickly learned they were often deceptively far apart, especially in the afternoon heat.

Our first grouping started at Painted Wall and Chasm Point. There is sidewalk between the two so you can easily visit both of these from one parking spot. I really liked Painted Wall – you can see why it holds this name in the photo below. It’s one of the deepest sections of the canyon, and I read that the only manmade structure taller than it in the world is Burj Khalifa in Dubai.

Brian made me stop along the road and take a photo with the sign for the next overlook – Cedar Point – for our family and friends in Ohio. This ended up being one of my favorite viewpoints because you have to walk a bit of trail from the road to the rim, and along the way there’s information about the local flora and fauna. We saw lots of flora but the only wildlife we spotted was a lone chipmunk who seemed to enjoy posing for the camera. The viewpoint itself was also one of the more interesting views of the Gunnison River – you could see almost a mile and half of water versus the brief glimpses we caught elsewhere.

We walked the road to the last “nearby” overlook, Dragon Point, which ended up having a very similar perspective as Cedar Point. If you’re pressed for time, I’d just do Cedar Point.

We geared up and relocated once more to Devil’s Overlook, walking the road to Cross Fissures viewpoint first. The walks were getting progressively warmer and more challenging as we went, and I was quite jealous of the other visitors piling into their cars, turning on their A/C, guzzling water, and taking off for the next viewpoint.

Happily, the Devil’s Overlook viewpoint was worth the hike – the trail led out to the rim where we were surrounded by interesting cliff buttresses sticking out into the canyon and smaller sections of painted rock. We could also clearly see the mountains in the distance – as well as the north rim trail, winding toward the canyon.

It was getting late and we still had a decent drive to our next hotel so I didn’t have it in me to fight the crowds at Pulpit Rock overlook on our way out of the park. Instead, we enjoyed that view from the road as we slowly navigated the traffic turning in and out of the viewpoint’s parking area.

There were several other hikes on the south rim we didn’t have time to do, and of course we didn’t even attempt to drive around to explore the north rim, which I’m sure would easily be a half-day or more adventure. There was lots more to see and do at Black Canyon of the Gunnison than I was anticipating, especially for those who want to go beyond driving to the overlooks. Happy to have checked this final Colorado national park off our list!