Being at a national park, I was unable to collect anything, but heaven knows I have way to many rocks as it is. It's also nice because there is still a lot of neat stuff to look at.
The hike was about 6 miles round trip, but most of it was off trail and there were some pretty steep places where we had to scramble. One of the girls that came with us was totally unprepared for the level of difficulty and generally had a miserable time of it. I, on the other hand, love that sort of thing. I will probably go back there with Katie sometime when she isn't pregnant.
Here are some photos (I apologize for the blurriness. My lens was dirty).
These are bear claw marks on a tree near the trail head.
Impromptu geology lesson about the Laramide orogeny.
Bush-whacking it.
Brother Gahn was telling us a story about a guy back in the late 1800's who was lost in the area and lived off of nothing but thistles.
I love the look on this girl's face. She was NOT having a good time.
Check out my awesome new hat! Thanks Erik!
This hillside is a lahar deposit; a volcanic mud flow. This particular lahar buried a forest of metasequoia, which is a relative of the modern day redwood.
Me standing next to a petrified metaseqouia. This tree was turned to stone by the process of permineralization: the filling of pore spaces with minerals, and petrifaction: the process by which organic material is altered to stone (calcedony in this case, which is microcrystaline quarts).
Brothers Gahn and Ben; two of my favorite professors of all time.
We saw these strange pillar formations on the way down. Brother Ben thought that there was probably a tree inside...
so he climbed up to check (he didn't make it all the way up, so it's still a mystery).
7 comments:
That looks so interesting! Also, I really need a hat like yours, an anti-sunburn hat. Any suggestions where to get one?
David would go back there with you - though we aren't too sure you should call that "bush-whacking" Looked pretty open to me. Kids work harder than that to get from one neighborhood to another around here
The standing fossilized tree - amazingly cool.
Tracie: REI has a great selection of hats. You can order from their website and they have a great return policy. If you don't like your hat for any reason, they will take it back.
Mom: That was the easy part. And it wasn't as easy as it looks. What you don't realize is that we were somewhere around 7000 feet at that point, and it was only up from there. We gained about 2000 feet in three miles. I didn't take picture during the tougher sections as I was expending most of my energy in trying to remain vertical; although my efforts were in vain more than once. We did go through a pretty thick stand of trees at one point, but that wouldn't have been necessary to be considered "bush-whacking" in my book. Anytime I am off trail and it is difficult hiking... and I am picking up ticks along the way, I'm bush-whacking it.
Ticks - the one bug that makes me shutter! Glad you had a good time.
Those petrified trees are sweet, I saw some on one of my ramblings in yellowstone, but none of them were that big. Funny about the ill-prepared hiker, i bet she will never forget that day.....although the hardest lessons learned are usually the most memorable.
Really cool, Mar!
tics do indeed qualify it as bush-whacking.
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