Maroon Bells/Black Canyon of the Gunnison

For those who don’t know, Maroon Bells is probably “the” hike people think of when Colorado is mentioned. (But who knows, I don’t live here – yet). The trailhead is located a few miles outside of Aspen. In order to access it, you can drive your car to the trailhead either before 8am or after 5pm. If you’re not an early bird, then you’re not out of luck. We had to go to the Aspen Highland Ski Area and purchase $6 tickets for an 8 mile bus ride to the start of the hike. It was a nice ride because the bus driver gave us basically a tour of the 8 mile expanse we passed. We learned that Aspen was the first town west of the Mississippi to get electricity, and they used to be big silver producers. We also learned about avalanches and passed a petting zoo with a llama named the Dolly Llama (haha). Once we got to the drop off, it was basically a short stroll to Maroon Lake. Words cannot describe how serene and beautiful the spot was. We were in a meadow with wildflowers, an alpine lake and two twin snow-covered peaks rising in the background (the Maroon Bells).

However, don’t think we cheated and walked straight up to the good view. We ended up doing a 3.2 mile round trip up to Crater Lake. This brought us closer to the peaks and to another alpine lake. We stopped and ate lunch on a stream bed with cold water running between our toes. We definitely want to return in the Fall at some point when all the aspen trees change to yellow and orange colors.

As for the town of Aspen itself, it was a really nice, quaint town but a little expensive for us. We frequented the local brewery twice and would give it a 4 star Yelp review.

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Black Canyon was very surreal to look at, but as we were on a time crunch, we only did the main overlooks. The history is cool – the canyon was formed from metamorphic rock and is continuing its descent into steepness as the Gunnison River eroded away the bedrock relentlessly. The canyon was a lot different from the Grand Canyon because it is steeper and the color is different. In the shadows, the canyon walls almost look black, hence Black Canyon. While we only had a few hours here, we felt like we saw the main points.