Ancestral Colorado River During most of the Pliocene Epoch the ancestral Colorado River did not flow past what is now Grand Junction; instead, it joined with the ancestral Gunnison River about 10 miles southeast of the present city, and the combined streams flowed southwestward across the slowly rising Uncompahgre arch through what was later to be called Unaweep Canyon (fig. 36). Southwest of the canyon, near the site of the present town of Gateway, the ancestral Colorado River was joined by the combined flows of the ancestral San Miguel River and the previously diverted ancestral Dolores River, then it flowed northwestward to what is now the mainstem of the Colorado River. I have attempted to show my ideas of this ancient drainage system as it may have existed in middle to late Pliocene time in figure 34. But the stage was set for more spectacular drainage changes to follow. Piracy on the High Plateaus Rivers, like people, do not always choose their courses wisely. After a few million years of downcutting through the soft sedimentary rocks, mainly what is now called the Mancos Shale, the ancestral Colorado and Gunnison Rivers found themselves cutting through the hard Proterozoic rocks in a deep gorge athwart the slowly rising Uncompahgre arch, which greatly slowed the downcutting power of the combined streams. Note in figure 34_A_ that while the mighty ancestral Colorado and Gunnison Rivers were in this frustrating predicament, a young upstart tributary began cutting northward from what is now the mouth of the Dolores River (fig. 34_D_). Although the combined main rivers could lower their channel only very slowly because of the hard rock in Unaweep Canyon, the tributary was able to cut downward and headward quite rapidly through the soft Mancos Shale. It eventually cut around the northwestward dipping Uncompahgre arch and headed southeastward toward the ancestral Colorado River near the present site of Palisade. Then occurred an act of piracy that put to shame the mightiest exploits of Blackbeard and Captain Kidd. In latest Pliocene or earliest Pleistocene time additional uplift of the Uncompahgre arch, an unusually large flood, or both, caused the ancestral Colorado River to overflow its banks and spill across a low shale divide into the headwaters of the tributary. Some ponding may have preceded the spillover. With this enormously increased supply of water, the tributary cut down rapidly through the soft shale and captured the entire flow of the Colorado River, but the ancestral Gunnison River still flowed through Unaweep Canyon, as shown in figure 34_B_. Stream capture of this type is appropriately called “piracy.”