Big Dominguez Canyon
Sunrise glow illuminates the Gunnison River, Big Dominguez Canyon and Uncompahgre Plateau beyond.
A vibrant sunrise over the Gunnison River where it cuts through the Uncompahgre Plateau near the Dominguez Canyons. In the distance you can see the snowy peaks of the Cimarron and Sneffels Ranges of the San Juan Mountains.
Petroglyphs in Big Dominguez Canyon depict bighorn sheep, bear and bear paws, and people, amongst other symbols.
Petroglyphs in Big Dominguez Canyon depict horseback riders around a mysterious shape, perhaps a prickly pear cacti?
A rugged portion of the Big Dominguez Canyon. One unique geologic feature of many of the canyons of the Uncompahgre Plateau is the presence of black or purple gneiss or granite at the canyon bottoms below the sandstone walls. This ancient Precambrian crystalline basement rock is between about 1.4 to 1.8 billion years old – much older than the ~200 million year old Chinle formation sandstone above it. The gap between the ancient basement rock and younger sandstone represents well over a billion years of missing geological history.
After our time at Rattlesnake Arches, we drove south of Grand Junction to see Big Dominguez Canyon, another "local" canyon which surprisingly I've never visited before, despite having driven past it countless times! After a night camping on a nearby rim overlooking the canyon, we did a very pleasant day hike into the canyon, enjoying the sandstone scenery, ancient petroglyphs, and small waterfalls.