Grand Mesa, Uncompahgre and Gunnison National Forests

The Grand Mesa, Uncompahgre and Gunnison -- three national forests run as one unit out of Delta, Colorado -- cover more than three million acres of the state's western slope, from the great flat-topped tableland of Grand Mesa to the jagged San Juan and Elk peaks in the south. It's some of the biggest, most varied high country in Colorado: basalt plateaus freckled with hundreds of trout lakes, fourteeners topping out at Uncompahgre Peak (~14,309 ft), and, near Crested Butte, some of the most sweeping aspen forests in the Rockies. Cool twist: Grand Mesa is often called one of the world's largest flat-topped mountains, and come fall the aspens around Kebler Pass turn the whole range gold.

The place

The Grand Mesa, Uncompahgre and Gunnison National Forests -- everyone just calls them the GMUG -- sprawl across more than three million acres of western Colorado, three separate forests managed together from a single supervisor's office in Delta. It's a landscape of huge contrasts: the flat-topped basalt tableland of Grand Mesa rising to around 10,000-11,000 feet above the Colorado River valley, the rolling aspen high country and West Elk peaks around Gunnison and Crested Butte, and the rugged, mineral-stained San Juan Mountains to the south, where the land climbs past 14,000 feet. Between the plateaus and the peaks you'll find hundreds of alpine lakes, deep river canyons, and some of the darkest, quietest country left in the Rockies.

History

The three forests were stitched together over time: Grand Mesa and Uncompahgre were paired up in 1954, and the Gunnison was folded in in 1973, giving today's GMUG unit run out of Delta. Long before any of that, this was Ute homeland -- specifically the country of the Tabeguache (Uncompahgre) Ute bands, who lived and hunted across these valleys, plateaus, and the San Juan front for generations before they were pushed out to reservations in the late 1800s. The name 'Uncompahgre' is a Ute word, usually glossed as something like 'dirty water' or 'red water' -- a nod to the mineral springs that stain the ground near Ouray. Then came the silver and gold rushes: the San Juans on the south end of the forests were torn up by hard-rock mining in the late 1800s, and gateway towns like Ouray and Lake City still carry that boom-and-bust history in their old buildings and the mine roads climbing above them.

Wildlife & plants

This is big-game country. Elk and mule deer move through it in large numbers -- the region holds some of Colorado's strongest elk herds -- along with black bears, mountain lions you'll almost never see, and bighorn sheep on the high rocky slopes. Moose are a real presence here too, especially up on Grand Mesa, where a herd took hold after reintroductions in the 2000s. The hundreds of lakes and streams are trout water -- rainbow, brook, brown, and native cutthroat. The forests layer up by elevation: pinyon pine, juniper, oak, and sagebrush on the warm, dry lower plateaus; vast stands of quaking aspen in the middle country; and dark Engelmann spruce and subalpine fir climbing toward treeline. Come late September, those aspens are the main event -- whole hillsides going gold at once.

Notable features

The forests' signature feature is Grand Mesa itself -- a basalt-lava-capped plateau often called one of the largest flat-topped mountains in the world, its surface mostly between 10,000 and 11,000 feet and dotted with hundreds of lakes. The high point of the whole unit is Uncompahgre Peak (~14,309 feet), the tallest summit in the San Juan Mountains and one of several fourteeners on or bordering the forests, including neighboring Wetterhorn Peak. Roughly ten wilderness areas anchor the wild core -- among them West Elk, the Raggeds, Uncompahgre, Mount Sneffels, Lizard Head, and Powderhorn -- some of them shared with adjoining forests. Just off the GMUG sit two more western-slope landmarks: Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park, one of the steepest, narrowest gorges in North America, and Blue Mesa Reservoir, the largest body of water entirely within Colorado.

Cool to know

• Grand Mesa is often billed as one of the largest flat-topped mountains on Earth -- a giant tableland capped by hard basalt lava that protected the softer rock underneath while the surrounding country eroded away. Its top is high enough and wet enough to hold hundreds of little lakes, which is why locals sometimes call it the 'Grand Mesa lakes country.'
• The name Uncompahgre comes from the Ute language and is usually translated as something close to 'dirty water' or 'red water spring' -- a reference to the reddish, mineral-laden springs near Ouray. There's no single official translation, so you'll see it rendered a few different ways.
• The aspen forests near Kebler Pass, west of Crested Butte, are some of the largest and most continuous in the Rockies -- a rolling sea of clonal aspen that draws leaf-peepers from all over every fall. (The most famous single aspen clone, 'Pando,' actually lives over in Utah's Fishlake National Forest -- but Kebler's aspen landscape is a stunner in its own right.)
• Uncompahgre Peak, the highest point on the forests at about 14,309 feet, is the tallest of all the San Juan Mountains -- and it's just one of a whole cluster of fourteeners packed into this corner of Colorado.
• Right next door, the Gunnison River has carved Black Canyon of the Gunnison -- a gorge so deep and narrow that parts of its floor get only a half-hour of direct sunlight a day. It's now a national park, but it sits shoulder-to-shoulder with the Gunnison forest country.
• Blue Mesa Reservoir, just off the forest along the Gunnison River, is the largest body of water entirely within Colorado -- bigger reservoirs like Lake Powell cross into other states, but Blue Mesa is all Colorado's.