Unaweep Canyon

Colorado, USA, looking west from west of the summit. Unaweep Canyon is the ancestral course of the Colorado River across the Uncompahgre uplift in western Colorado. The river was happily cutting its channel as the land rose around it, and then it was captured into its present course by a drainage working around the uplift from the west. The uplift continued after the capture, so that the canyon now has a convex profile with a pass in the middle. The Utes, the local Native American tribe, realized the canyon is anomalous--"Unaweep" is supposed to come from a phrase meaning "canyon with two mouths." Colorado State Route 141 follows the canyon from outside Grand Junction to Gateway.