One Year Ago Today: Mapping on the Lincoln Highway

One year ago today, I was out mapping along a portion of the Lincoln Highway in eastern Nevada.
And how can you tell it's the Lincoln Highway? Simple: that little brown marker along the road near the juniper tree.
People use these signs to follow some of the several original tracks of the Lincoln Highway. In places, more than one dirt road is marked, partly because of major realignment of the road from the time of its inception in 19-whenever (different times in different places, from 1912 through 1915) to the time it became the early Highway 50 in Nevada (1925).
"ROAD NOT MAINTAINED FOR LOW CLEARANCE VEHICLES." Indeed! Also not maintained for vehicles without low gearing. Also not maintained for commonly inclement weather: thunderstorms and mud in summer and ice, snow, and mud in winter through spring.
Last year the monsoon came at the usual time, more like early to mid-July than this year's late May or early June.
View from the Lincoln Highway dirt, two-track road, of the a thunderstorm, with verga. Smoke from summer fires have colored things a little reddish to yellowish.
Light shines through the clouds onto the high mountains of the Duck Creek Range and perhaps some of the Schell Creek Range.

From Nevada Backroaders, PDF dated 7-22-2005:

We started out on Friday by running part of the old Lincoln Highway between Ely and Jake's Valley to the west of town. The Lincoln Highway was the first official coast to coast gravel highway that ran from New York City to San Francisco and was used, following various routes, from about 1913 until 1925 when highways began to be numbered. The section we followed was most likely used until 1919 or 1920 when the main route was moved and followed what is now US50. We got some great views of the Robinson Mine and still had a lot of wildflowers blooming which made for a great day in the hills and trees.

The Lincoln Highway
The Lincoln Highway Association
The Lincoln Highway across Eastern Nevada, 1924 map

The Trail to 10,800 Feet

Before we began our July 1st trek up the Wheeler Peak Summit trail, we had fairly clear skies and nice views of the peak.
Aspen trees in the meadow of the Wheeler Peak campground, just downhill from our campsite, which was at about 9900 feet (TerraServer map).
It took us a while to get out of camp, but we were finally underway by about 11:00 am. By 11:30 when we came to this great view of the rocky cliffs forming the east part of the Wheeler Peak cirque, we had passed through the morning thunderstorm, which lasted from about 10:30 to 11:30. These cliffs were barely visible during our June 10th hike.

If you want to summit, it's recommended that you start early in the morning, although at least two parties started an hour or more after we did.
A view looking east of the morning thunderstorm, which rained on us, then passed into Utah.
At 11:45 we turned off the Teresa-Stella Lakes Loop trail for the Wheeler Peak trail: 3.1 miles and 2704 feet to the top from here.
Aspen trees.
The trail at about 10,300 feet, as it aims toward Bald Mountain.
Wheeler Peak, as seen at noon from a broad meadow below Bald Mountain, just before the trail goes into some relatively dense and magnificently tall spruce trees.
Picea engelmannii Parry ex Engelm., commonly known as Engelmann spruce.
The morning thunderstorm as of 12:25 pm, now well into Utah.
This part of the trail is just wonderful: easy to walk on, great views, nice rocks, and only slightly uphill.
Aspen trees with bent trunks on a steep, rocky slope.
A view of Stella Lake and the cirque headwall above Teresa Lake (Teresa Lake cannot be seen in this view). The trail at this point has entered the steep cirque headwall above Stella Lake.
The rock pile above the trees and below the snow chutes is probably a terminal moraine, the most recent one in front of a now-melted glacier.
I love these talus chutes and piles!
As of about 12:30 pm and at about 10,800 feet, the trail goes on...

Wheeler Peak is inside Great Basin National Park

Links: Blowpipe Tests

Blowpipe analysis - the determination of elements present in minerals by use of a blowpipe - was not taught when I was in school, but was routinely used by geologists of my dad's era. I probably missed learning this skill by only a few years: blowpipe testing was being taught during the early 1950's; it was not being taught where I went to school by the early 1970's.

A bit about the history of blowpipe analysis can be found here, here, and here. Some examples of some old, collectible blowpipe kits can be seen here, here, and through the links on this page. Blowpipe tests are still described in some rock and mineral field guides and in some mineralogy texts - for example, in Dana's Minerals and How to Study Them and in Rocks, Gems and Minerals: Revised and Updated. If refreshed, those links will show all references to "blowpipe tests" in those two books.

For the record, the mineralogy textbook I used in school was probably this one: Dana's Manual of Mineralogy, 18th Edition by Cornelius S. Hurlbut, Jr., 1971; the one I have now is Manual of Mineralogy (after James D. Dana), 21st Edition by Cornelis Klein and Cornelius S. Hurlbut, Jr., 1993 in hardback. If you search the latter book on Amazon.com for "blowpipe tests," you will come up with highly erroneous results, because the search-inside feature switches to a completely different book (Manual of mineralogy, including observations on mines, rocks, reduction of ores and the applications of the science to the arts, Dana, 1855), not just a different editition as it says. My 1993 edition doesn't mention blowpipes at all!

More Blowpipe Links:
Brush, G. J., and Penfield, S. L., 1906, Manual of determinative mineralogy and blowpipe analysis: Mineralogical Research Company used books

with a Flame Coloration by Element table modified from The Manual at Webmineral.com

Elderhorst, W., 1861, A manual of blowpipe-analysis, and determinative mineralogy, Elderhorst: The Internet Archive

Dana, S., and Ford, W. E., 1912, Dana's manual of mineralogy for the student of elementary mineralogy, the mining engineer, the geologist, the prospector, the collector, etc: The Internet Archive

Getman, F. H., 1899, The elements of blowpipe analysis: The Internet Archive

Road Song: What am I Living For

This post is part of a heretofore unrecognized series, which until now has only included one other post. Back in the old days, a couple of my colleagues and I filled several 90-minute tapes with roads songs, which were for playing while on the road to, from, or in the field. Remarkably, those tapes survived, and I now have a copy of them on CD. The rules for qualifying a song as a road song were simple: any mention of streets, roads, highways, cars, trucks or truckers, or railroads and railroad tracks made the song a suitable one for our collection. The songs were basically travel songs, but airplanes and boats were out, if I remember right.

The Mark-Almond Band's What am I Living For is only vaguely a road song; it's mostly a love song that briefly mentions hitting the road. I've posted the song - along with the ones below - more in response to a long-ago post by Stephanie Zvan at Almost Diamonds than as a continuation of my fairly unpopulated road song series. Stephanie said, "The Best Love Songs ...are the ones that look beyond the first blush." Her songs reminded me of What am I Living For, and that song then reminded me of the next two songs, which aren't road songs by any stretch of the imagination.

Only one website (that I could find) lists full lyrics for the Mark-Almond Band song; the lyrics are correct, some of what he's written about the Allman Brothers (totally unrelated to the Mark-Almond Band, and totally unrelated to the singer Marc Almond) is inaccurate.

Mark-Almond Band: What am I Living For
Album: Rising, 1972

Jim Croce: Time in a Bottle (a video here)
Album: You Don't Mess Around with Jim, 1972

James Taylor: Fire and Rain (lyrics and story here)
Album: Sweet Baby James, 1970



P.S. I saw James Taylor in concert in 1971 in Virginia.

Garden Status at Five Weeks

At 5 weeks, our garden is looking greener and a little more lively. Compare 0 weeks and 3 weeks (post mistakenly said 2 weeks).
Butterfly on zucchini squash.
Red kale.
Chocolate mint (sent overseas to me by Julia!).
Anaheim pepper.
Tomatoes.

And the marigolds will be blooming soon. Maybe tomorrow!

Date and time of photos: July 6, 2009, at 9:30 am