Box Canyon (Colorado) facts for kids
Box Canyon is a special type of canyon found in Ouray County, Colorado, in the United States. It's called a "box canyon" because it has very steep sides, like the walls of a box.
What is Box Canyon?
Long ago, a mining camp was built here. This camp helped the nearby city of Ouray grow into a lasting community.
Box Canyon is famous for its amazing waterfall, called Box Canyon Falls. This waterfall drops about 285 feet (87 meters)! The canyon walls around the falls are made of a very hard rock called quartzite. These walls rise almost 100 feet (30 meters) higher than the waterfall itself.
You can explore the canyon by taking one of two trails. A short trail, about 500 feet (152 meters) long, leads you right to the bottom of the falls. There's also a steeper path that takes you to the very top. You need to pay a small fee to use these trails and see the canyon.
How the Canyon Was Formed
Box Canyon shows something cool called an "angular unconformity." This is a geology term for when two different rock layers meet at an angle. It means there was a huge gap in time between when the two layers were formed.
In Box Canyon, the Elbert Formation rock layer sits on top of the Uncompahgre Formation. The difference in age between these two rock layers is about 1.3 billion years! Imagine how much history is hidden in these rocks.
