Black Canyon Painted Wall
by Janice Pariza
Title
Black Canyon Painted Wall
Artist
Janice Pariza
Medium
Photograph - Photography Art
Description
A dramatic view of the deep narrow Black Canyon of the Gunnison's 'Painted Wall'.
3rd Place in FAA Canyon Walls Contest!
This Image tied for 2nd place in the contest America's National Park! 6/2020
This image was captured on a late Summer day after fishing the River.
It was taken while standing on the edge of this rock I had climbed to.
Big enough to be overwhelming, still intimate enough to feel the pulse of time, Black Canyon of the Gunnison exposes you to some of the steepest cliffs, oldest rock, and craggiest spires in North America. With two million years to work, the Gunnison River, along with the forces of weathering, has sculpted this vertical wilderness of rock, water, and sky.
The canyon has been a mighty barrier to humans. Only its rims, never the gorge, show evidence of human occupation - not even by Ute Indians living in the area since written history began.
Water is life: a simple concept; but in the arid west, settlers could not rely on rain to supply water to nourish their fields. The community at East Portal brought together people of various skills and backgrounds to construct a tunnel that would transfer a portion of the Gunnison River water to the fields of the Uncompahgre Valley to the west. Their labors from 1905 to 1909 drove a tunnel 11 feet x 12 feet six miles through the cliffs of the Black Canyon and helped ensure the survival of communities in the valley.
Few governments in the history of the world have given away land to their citizens. The Homestead Act directed the U.S. Government to do just that in the years following the Civil War. As families moved into the valleys of western Colorado in the 1880s, they found the nearby streams to be unreliable sources of irrigation for their fields. Without water, the land held no value for them.
Plans to divert water from the Black Canyon's more dependable Gunnison River were visionary. Beginning in 1894, surveys eventually revealed locations for both ends of a tunnel (in the canyon and the valley), with the intent of meeting in the middle. A road was scraped into the canyon slopes, descending to the river, and the town of East Portal (also known as River Portal) was born.
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Copyright Janice Rae Pariza producer of Crazy Woman Art
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Prints of this art are available on canvas, metal, acrylic and gallery prints, framed or unframed, greeting cards and iPhone or Galaxy phone covers . FAA has a large selection of frames, mats and surfaces available for you to create museum quality masterpieces of your original print selections.
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Uploaded
October 26th, 2014
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Comments (9)
Pamela Newcomb
Incredible scale and detail at once, it looks like you are a little too close to the edge! Congratulations on your feature in The 200 Club.
John Bailey
Congratulations on being featured in the Fine Art America Group "Images That Excite You!"
Priscilla Burgers
Congratulations on your Third Place win in the Canyon Walls contest! Great capture of Black Canyon of the Gunnison!