September 3, 2009 Grand Mesa and the Land's End Observatory

Last Spring MMG and I took a day trip over the Grand Mesa Scenic and Historical Byway to the southeast of Grand junction, CO. While the altitude of Grand Junction is around 4500 feet, the top of Grand Mesa ranges from 10,000 to 11,000 feet.

The attraction to DDG is that on the road to the top of Grand Mesa there are spectacular views back down into the Colorado River valley/canyon to the east of Grand Junction while once on top of the mesa, the view to the south and west of the Gunnison River Canyon are equally awesome.

As a comparison of the respective altitudes shows, the view from the mesa down to either of the rivers is more than a mile. Because the canyons are so wide, the view is not much at all like the Grand Canyon, but the scope is similar.

On the Spring trip we wanted to go to the Land's End Observation point some 12 miles of dirt road to the west of the main road through Grand Mesa but were foiled by unmelted snow banks.

Not today. After a dusty, bumpy ride we were rewarded by a view west from the rim of the mesa into and over the Gunnison River Canyon. On a clear day, this view would stretch some 70 to 100 miles to the west and nearly 100 miles from south to north, including the junction of the Gunnison River with the Colorado River, the Grand Junction.

This picture gives a little history on the building of the Observatory:


We had our picnic lunch on a convenient bench on the back of the Observatory an found that we were not the only sightseers there:


It has recently been suggested that the reason that I am enamored of long and wide views is that as a (voluntarily) grounded former pilot I like to think I'm seeing the view from the cockpit without having to constantly scan for other aircraft and worry about the eventual landing. May be some truth in that.

In any event, you can imagine our disappointment to find that the view was severely restricted by the smoke from the Los Angeles fire that has been blown into this area! The following picture is the best we could get:


We found that the road down from the Observatory into the Gunnison River Canyon was a real treat -- 18 more miles of hairpin turns on a mostly dirt road! You can see it in this picture:


Despite the disappointment caused by the LA smoke, we had a nice day and will keep this ride on our "next time" list!

Tomorrow we're finally getting underway on our trip. First stop, Salt Lake City!

Our Best to you all.

MMG and DDG