Black Canyon of the Bear River

A mile west of Grace the Bear River drops into a narrow gorge of black basalt, walls broken into columns and ledges, pools at the bottom. The river cut it. Lava flows had already turned the Bear south at Soda Point, away from the Snake and toward Lake Bonneville, and as that lake fell the river kept cutting down through the basalt of Gem Valley to meet it. An early photograph reproduced on the canyon's interpretive panel shows the water running within a few feet of the rim.

Very little of that water comes through now. Grace was settled in 1889, and it was 1899 before its farmers finished the Last Chance Canal and got the river onto the valley's dry benches. In 1906 the Telluride Power Company began a dam above town, and by 1908 a wooden flowline was carrying the river some five miles across the valley to a powerhouse below the canyon, feeding a grid that sent the power south to northern Utah. Utah Power and Light took the plant over in 1912 and expanded it, and PacifiCorp runs it today as part of its Bear River Project. Below the dam the canyon carries what the plant does not take, plus releases scheduled for kayakers and rafters on certain days of the year.

So the gorge reads like a diagram: lava, the lake that drained, and a century of engineering sitting on top. Anglers fish its pools, and the view from the bridge and the rim takes a few minutes.

From Grace, take Center Street west about a mile to the Bear River bridge. PacifiCorp posts the Black Canyon boating release schedule online.