The Warner Point Trail is a 1.4 mile round trip that begins at the High Point view point at the end of the south rim road at Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park in southwest Colorado. The trail honors Mark Warner who came to western Colorado in 1917 and campaigned to preserve the Black Canyon for future generations.
There is a 14 stop trail guide for the Warner Point Trail and there are views to the south toward the Mount Sneffels area of the San Juan Mountains.
One of the interpretive signs at the High Point discusses the Gunnison uplift, the subsequent erosion, the volcanic activity in the West Elk and San Juan Mountains, and how the Gunnison River cut across the buried uplift to cut the Black Canyon.
One of the largest Pinyon Pines that you’ll ever find is at trail marker 13. The trail guide says that some of the trees in this grove are 750 to 850 years old. There are also some Douglas Firs growing on the cooler north side of this ridge. One of the three south rim trails that descends into the Black Canyon begins along the Warner Point Trail at an obscure marker.
There is a view point at the end of the trail into the Black Canyon. Mark Warner’s efforts were rewarded when President Herbert Hoover signed the Black Canyon as a National Monument in 1933. President Clinton expanded the park and renamed it as a National Park in 1999.
I spent 0:50 minutes on the Warner Point Trail on an 80 F degree late May afternoon.
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