The North Fork Gunnison River (locally known as the North Fork) is a tributary of the

Gunnison River The Gunnison River is located in western Colorado, United States and is one of the largest tributaries of the Colorado River. Description The river flows east to west and has a drainage area of according to the USGS. The drainage basin of ...

, long,U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline data
The National Map
accessed March 18, 2011 in southwestern

Colorado Colorado (, other variants) is a state in the Mountain states, Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It encompasses most of the Southern Rocky Mountains, as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the wes ...

in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

. It drains part of the southwestern flank of the Elk Mountains northeast of

Delta Delta commonly refers to: * Delta (letter) (Δ or δ), a letter of the Greek alphabet * River delta, at a river mouth * D ( NATO phonetic alphabet: "Delta") * Delta Air Lines, US * Delta variant of SARS-CoV-2 that causes COVID-19 Delta may also ...

. It is formed in the mountains of northwestern

Gunnison County Gunnison County is a county located in the U.S. state of Colorado. As of the 2020 census, the population was 16,918. The county seat is Gunnison. The county was named for John W. Gunnison, a United States Army officer and captain in the Army ...

by the confluence of Muddy Creek and Anthracite Creek. The confluence is located along State Highway 133 on the south side of

McClure Pass McClure Pass is a mountain pass in the Rocky Mountains of western Colorado in the United States. It is located along the boundary between Pitkin and Gunnison counties, in a gap at the western side of the Elk Mountains. The pass is at an elevat ...

. It descends to the southwest through a widening valley past

Somerset ( en, All The People of Somerset) , locator_map = , coordinates = , region = South West England , established_date = Ancient , established_by = , preceded_by = , origin = , lord_lieutenant_office =Lord Lieutenant of Somerset , lord_ ...

Paonia Paonia is a statutory town in Delta County, Colorado, United States. The population was 1,451 at the 2010 census. History The area was first explored in 1853 by Captain John W. Gunnison of the United States Army. Gunnison was on an expeditio ...

, and Hotchkiss. It joins the Gunnison in eastern Delta County downstream from the Black Canyon between Delta and Hotchkiss. The valley of the river, called the North Fork Valley, has a temperate climate that has historically been a center of

fruit In botany, a fruit is the seed-bearing structure in flowering plants that is formed from the ovary after flowering. Fruits are the means by which flowering plants (also known as angiosperms) disseminate their seeds. Edible fruits in particu ...

growing in southwestern Colorado. It is also a regional center of the

coal Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock, formed as rock strata called coal seams. Coal is mostly carbon with variable amounts of other elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen. Coal is formed when ...

mining Mining is the extraction of valuable minerals or other geological materials from the Earth, usually from an ore body, lode, vein, seam, reef, or placer deposit. The exploitation of these deposits for raw material is based on the economic ...

industry, centered on the mining town of Somerset in the upper valley. Modern coal mining operations are highly visible along the upper valley walls. The creeks at the headwaters of the river pass through areas of highly erodible shale, resulting in high concentrations of sediment during springtime runoff.

References

Gunnison River Rivers of Colorado Rivers of Delta County, Colorado Rivers of Gunnison County, Colorado Tributaries of the Colorado River in Colorado {{Colorado-river-stub

See also

References