My Travels in 2013 (A Belated Travel Summary)

I apparently haven't participated in the Year of Travel Meme since 2010, possibly because I traveled back and forth across the same old roads in 2011, 2012, and 2013 -- or possibly I was just too busy at the holiday time of year to get that kind of blog post together. This year, Evelyn Mervine got her Year of Travel 2013 post up right at the end of the year; I'm getting mine up before the end of January, 2014. What follows is a brief summary.

January: Returned from a trip to Alaska.

Spruce on snow.

February: Visited Unionville, NV, in scenic Buena Vista Valley, stopping to take a photo of a cabin that purportedly once belonged to Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain).

Old cabin.

March: Visited Leach Hot Spring in Grass Valley, NV, and Kyle Hot Spring in Buena Vista Valley.

Leach Hot Springs.

At Kyle Hot Spring, looking across Buena Vista Valley toward Unionville.

April: Drove within sight of Wheeler Peak in eastern NV.

Wheeler Peak seen from Highway 50.

May: Drove by and contemplated the badlands near Rye Patch Dam several times.

Looking west from I-80 just south of Rye Patch Dam.

June: Drove several parts of old Highway 40 in Nevada, including this one near Humboldt House:

Old 40 looking northeast between Humboldt House and Imlay.

July: Crossed the Humboldt River, drove on the Applegate Trail past Haystack Butte, and visited Sulphur, NV, host to large piles of sulfur and scattered old junk.

Sulfur at Sulphur.

August: August was the month in which MOH and I rapidly toured parts of five western states. I blogged about the trip a little, but not as much as I hoped. Besides places already mentioned, we stopped briefly at the North Rim.

Distant view of the San Francisco volcanic field from the North Rim,
with the cherty Kaibab Limestone in the foreground.

After so much travel in August, I apparently didn't go anywhere until the last day of October.

November: Family matters took me to Alaska, where I took very few non-family-related photos.

Mt. Susitna. A little more about the "Sleeping Lady," as she is often called here,
and a bit about the Sleeping Lady brewpub here.

December: Another trip to points north.

Mt. St. Helens, Spirit Lake, and the Toutle River.

It is, perhaps, a little too late for this post to be considered part of a 2013 travel meme, but if you haven't posted a travel compilation for the year yet, feel free to take my cue and give yourself til the end of January!

Marathon Summer Summary

It was a busy summer, and now with fall here, I'm once again about to go back for another work stint, which for me will involve working about 18 days in a row, depending on a few unknowns. Last month, for various reasons, I wasn't looking forward to going back to work after my days off; this month I'm merely a bit tired.

In the middle of my typically long work stints, if I feel I've gotten into a bit of a rut, I will often have to renew myself, usually by refocusing my mind, sometimes by something as simple as a hot bath (no hot springs are currently handy). A little burnout or rut development here and there is normal. What has been somewhat atypical this summer is the intensity of our days off, my 10 or so, MOH's 7. I usually spend about one day (sometimes two if I'm lucky) getting ready for days off by catching up on home paperwork and chores, by getting laundry done, and by running a few errands. Then, off we go. The where is usually a great place, and although the where sometimes involves chores of other kinds, the where always involves some needed relaxation. This summer has included two major trips, Alaska and a camping expedition to Wheeler Peak; these trips have been rewarding, enjoyable, relaxing, and offtimes intense. The comings and goings related to these trips — and to smaller trips like one earlier this summer and one earlier this month — always involve getting ready, and the return always involves unwinding from the trip and getting ready to go back to work, often with more paperwork and chores, more laundry, and more errands, giving the whole several days a symmetry of sorts.

These last four months have felt time or event crowded to me, with every day off for both of us seemingly scheduled in advance. Oh yes, we have had time to stop in Middlegate, time to ride our mountain bikes, time to hike to the Pony Express Station (maybe twice!), time to stand in the river and fish, and time to stare deeply into several campfires. We've been fortunate in these things, and in having opportunities for travel, even when some of our travel has been done to accomplish chores and repairs of various kinds. We have also been fortunate in having two jobs, and two cars in which to get to those jobs. Our jobs start at different times of the day; we sometimes pass each other on the road, one coming home from work while the other is going. We wave at each other or flash our lights.

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The other week, my truck broke down in front of our little house, fully blocking one of the roads. After trying a few things and getting out the shop manual — hurriedly, because we didn't know what we were going to do if we couldn't get the thing started and dusk was threatening — we determined that the fuel pump, located inside the gas tank, was kaput. I called the emergency number of the place that usually works on my truck; the owner recommended a towing service. I called them, they recommended another outfit. That guy came over immediately, pulled my truck onto his tow truck while neighbors watched, and hauled my malfunctioning truck off to the auto shop. He dropped the truck and keys there (after hours), and delivered the towing bill to my insurance agent the next day. Two days later (a colleague drove me to work and back while I was sans truck) I had my truck back. Yes, it was the fuel pump.

———

A few days or a couple weeks later, while out camping miles from anywhere but Baker, a town of minimal services — card-reader gas station, a couple motels, a place to get showers, a place that sells firewood for camping, and an operating cafe-bar with small general store of the mini-mart variety — the other car, our Prius, broke down in a way that left it somewhat driveable, driveable only because of its strange hybrid system. We finally determined, after replacing most of the coolant, that the "fan" belt to the water pump had broken or come off. The Prius is not an easy car to work on without a full lift, and it has very tight spaces around most of the parts that one might want to work on, including the belt. We were able to coast it down to Baker without it overheating, and with me driving another vehicle loaned to us by our campmate-SIL. We pulled the Prius into the card-reader gas station, drove the other vehicle over to the cafe-bar. Baker has no cell service. No place near Baker has any usable cell service whatsoever, although I got sniffs on the mountain above 8500 feet. We were able to use the landline at the bar to call the number of my auto shop (which I had on my not completely useless cell phone), and were able to find that they were probably the only place for hours that could work on a Prius. So we called the same towing company, met the tow truck by the Prius a couple hours later, and had the car dropped at the auto shop. We drove SIL's vehicle back to camp.

Now we have a whole campfull of gear, ours and SIL's, and one vehicle, when it took two fully loaded vehicles to get the gear and the three of us to camp. We left with SIL the next day, the day she was planning on leaving anyway, picked up my truck at our little house, drove back to camp, and stayed an extra day! The luxury of having an extra day! And the luxury and good fortune of having the vehicles to pull this thing off! (We weren't as overscheduled as I thought, it turned out.)

We stayed overnight, packed up camp the next morning, drove in and unpacked, then picked the Prius up at the shop. Yes, it was only the one belt, the one running the water pump.

—————

It has seemed like a bit of a marathon summer, perhaps fall will be more steady-as-she-goes.

Fold Analogs

After spotting the folds in meta-argillite up on Wheeler, I came across these distorted, fold-like growth bands in an old tree stump. These "folds" are quite variable, ranging from gentle to tight. They are locally similar, broadly disharmonic. Maybe Callan could describe them a little better than that!
Two small "folds" that are slightly overturned to the east.

Friday Field Photos: Folded, with Lineation

This is a small glacial boulder of folded meta-argillite, possibly from the Precambrian McCoy Creek Group, which I found along the trail between Stella and Teresa Lakes, beneath Wheeler Peak in Great Basin National Park, close to last week's boulder. The greenish, coarser-grained layers accentuate and define the folding, which otherwise would be more difficult to see in the reddish or purplish gray layers.
Zooming in on the small boulder, I'm poining at some crude lineations, which my finger roughly parallels. The green bed at the top of the boulder is also lineated.
The lineation direction theoretically defines the direction of motion present during the tectonic event that created the lineations and possibly the folding. If we had some context, if this rock was part of an outcrop, we could look perpendicular to the lineation direction, instead of parallel to it the way we are now. While looking perpendicular to the lineation direction, the nature of the folding or of other micro- to meso-scale structures might tell us relative motion of beds during the lineation-forming event, for example top-to-the-east or top-to-the-west. Because this rock was part of a glacial moraine, it could tell us very little about the tectonic events it had been exposed to during the course of the last 540 million years or so. (GSA Geologic Time Scale.)

Friday Field Photo: Cross Bedding in Quartzite

This small quartzite boulder, found in morainal deposits between Stella Lake and Teresa Lake below Wheeler Peak in Great Basin National Park, shows cross-bedding defined by dark purplish to reddish laminations. Up appears to be to the left. Without a stratigraphic context it's hard to say whether this quartzite is part of the late Precambrian McCoy Creek Group (pCMc) or the possibly late Precambrian to mostly early Cambrian Prospect Mountain Quartzite (Cpm), but most slopes uphill from this spot are in the Prospect Mountain Quartzite. Depositional environment was likely nearshore to offshore marine.

Alpenglow and Tentglow

On the way over to Great Basin National Park last week, I grabbed this quick photo of the alpenglow hitting the west side of Wheeler Peak (13,063 feet ASL), partly because the lower line of the pinkish band was hitting the mountain at just about tree line. The pinkish band is sometimes known as the Belt of Venus or antitwilight arch, at least when it is seen in the sky, and the dark purplish blue area below the alpenglow is the Earth's shadow on the mountain. It is sometimes called the dark segment, at least when seen in sky.

If you happen to be standing on a mountain when this pinkish phenomenon is visible to those to the west of you, you will be standing in the pinkish, dying light of the sun, just before it goes below your western horizon (presuming you aren't in Alaska or somewhere very far north or very far south, where the sun doesn't always set in the west, but can set in the north or south, or not set at all). As the pinkish, last light of the sun leaves you on your mountain perch, the terminator will come upon you, you'll be in the twilight zone, and then you will pass into the night (all while standing still).
In this grainier enlargement of the same photo, you can see that the pinkish alpenglow isn't exactly congruent with tree line in all places.
We drove on, to find and set up camp in the dark, at about 9800 feet on the other side of that same mountain.

Recent Great Basin N.P. Blogospherics:
A Park without it's Namesake at Geotripper
We Head Underground in the Great Basin at Geotripper
Great Basin National Park at Nature's Blog
My Backyard - Great Basin NP at WATCH FOR ROCKS

My 2010 Year of Traveling Meme

This traveling meme began last year, and was started by Alice at Sciencewomen. Others who did it in 2010 include Magma Cum Laude, NOVA Geoblog, Geotripper Part 1 and Part 2, and Geology Happens. This has been a fairly impromptu meme, with no detailed rules, and everyone should consider themselves tagged.

January: First off, I drove to Salt Lake City for a blogger meetup with Hgg. Later, I went to Elko for a meeting and to the lake to check out the snow.

Snow-covered valley in Utah with distant ice-fog.

February: MOH and I went to Great Basin National Park, which I've blogged about incessantly over these last couple years. I also made one roadtrip through Nevada, although I'm not sure why.

Ice near Sacramento Pass on the way to Wheeler Peak

March: In early March, I drove across the wet salt flats of Utah...
...and ended up on the icy mud flats of Alaska. In Alaska, we saw wildlife, a river (an icy river), a glacier (or not), a lodge with good beers, and more snow. I had flown north to see the Iditarod, but we ended up watching it on TV instead of braving the downtown cold.

April: Work, nothing else.

May: MOH and I went to Wheeler Peak, and later in the month we attempted Spencer's Hot Spring (too crowded), stayed in Austin, hiked to the Cold Springs Pony Express Station (not yet blogged), and went to the lake. I drove across Nevada to go to the GSN Gold Symposium, and went on two field trips, including a stop at Goldfield.

Lupines and ash-flow tuff on the trail to the Cold Springs Pony Express Station.

June: MOH and I came back from our late May trip to the lake, and then I drove to Big Smoky Valley, stopping briefly in Kingston, Carver's Station, Manhattan, and Belmont. We stayed once again in Austin, and went to Wheeler Peak at the end of the month.

Spectacular lenticular cloud in Big Smoky Valley, east side of the Toiyabe Range.

July: The biggest trip of the year for both MOH and I, was our trip to central Oregon via a brewery, Jarbidge, Baker City, and John Day Fossil Beds. While there, we saw lots of geology. We then returned via the Winnemucca-to-the-Sea Highway, a story which is not entirely complete.

Mt. Jefferson as seen from the Dee Wright Observatory

August: Work picked up again in August, so I didn't travel much. I did, however, manage to make it down to that Nevada hub, Tonopah. Over the course of three days, I crammed in lots backroad driving while looking at various geological features...

The Crater, in Clayton Valley north of Silver Peak.

...wandering around a couple old stomping grounds...

A southern pass into Fish Lake Valley,

with Mount Pinchot (13,494 feet, 4113 meters) of the Sierra Nevada in the distance.

...and dropping in on the infamous Silver Peak.

The Miner's Inn of Silver Peak, now defunct and rather bland looking. Was once the home of Alice's Restaurant, where you could, indeed, get anything you wanted.

As you may remember, I returned from the Tonopah area on one of the dustiest roads in Nevada.

September: After going to Elko for a meeting, I drove through Ruby Valley (MSR Maps), then took a long dirt road through Long Valley.

Ruby Lake NWR in the fall.

October: I went on the GSN fall field trip (a very dusty and slow affair due to an inexperienced bus driver who didn't like dirt roads or mines); then MOH and I took our famed Ophir Canyon route to Middlegate and beyond, returning via Pyramid Lake and Austin, NV.

Old building in Austin, NV.

November: Work.

December: While I was returning from an unexpected trip to the lake, MOH was making his way through central Nevada to another destination, so we decided to meet at Middlegate Station, where we spent two nights. We attended one of their twice monthly (or every other week) Prime Rib feeds, which I highly recommend. We banged around on some rocks, looked for fossils, and walked around on the fault scarps from the 1954 earthquake at Fairview Peak, which wasn't very photogenic because of heavy overcast. Central Nevada roads, even in the lowlands, are no longer recommended because of mud, snow, and continued storms. The central Nevada lowlands in question are at about 4000 to 5000 feet in elevation (MSR Maps). Low lowlands below 4000 feet are muddy to questionable.

The 1954 fault scarp is that irregular line cutting across the face of the mountain, generally below bedrock and often near the top of the alluvial fan. The scarp is by no means linear, and more than one can be seen in places. (Photo taken at about 6500 feet on the east side of Fairview Peak from a muddy road.)

MOH and I have already been to Wheeler Peak once this month, where the slopes were partly hidden by slowly lifting ice fog.

Wheeler Peak shrouded by ice fog and ice clouds.

And the year isn't over yet!
Where have you been?

2010 Participants:
The Musings of a Life-Long Scholar
Geotripper
Geotripper Postscript
VWXYNot?
Mountain Beltway
Andrew's Geology Blog
Maitri's VatulBlog
Geology Happens
Magma Cum Laude
Chris Rowan at Highly Allochthonous
Point Source
En Tequila Es Verdad
Anne Jefferson at Highly Allochthonous
Georneys
Liberty, Equality, and Geology

A Quick Note

Teresa Lake at 10,230 feet

I'll be in and out of internet connection over the next couple days, then will be going someplace cool. Links on earlier posts will be updated only sporadically, and all comments will be on moderation (not to say they won't be published, just that they won't be published immediately).

Plants and Birds and Rocks and Things: Another Trip to Wheeler Peak

So, with some of my current field work complete, and with MOH fortuitously on his seven days off, we took a trip out to Wheeler Peak yesterday. I browsed through some old photos and found that this year's early May trip was the earliest of any year, except for trips that I would place into snowshoeing or other winter categories.
Consequently, although these first two photos are similar in location and orientation to several I posted last year as snow comparison photos, they are earlier than those by at least three weeks. Nevertheless, they do show that Wheeler Peak has more snow on it in early May, 2010, than in late May, mid June, or late June of previous years. No surprise there, really.
The Great Basin National Park website correctly reported that Wheeler Peak Scenic Drive (the paved road that goes to 10,000 feet) was open to Mather Overlook...
...so we drove up and walked around the rocky point, which is at the end of a short dirt road and not far above the 9,000-foot elevation sign.
I was fascinated by how the snow highlights a fracture set across the face of Wheeler Peak, the fracture set being sub-parallel to the ground surface on the right (north) side of the peak. Enlarge the photo to see these fractures, and also to see the rock spire standing above and behind the foreground trees, also on the right side of the photo.
We walked around, finding plants and birds and rocks and things.
Plants included a lot of sweet-smelling, unusually tall and somewhat twisted Mountain Mahogany, manzanita, small Ponderosa pine trees (I think), distant leafless aspen, and distant limber pine.
We saw and heard a few birds, including a small group of Clark's Nutcrackers, a raven or two, and at least one chickadee.
As for rocks, they were everywhere, in roadcuts leading up to the overlook, forming whole hillsides and slopes across the way, scattered all over the ground over which we walked, and jutting out as cliffs to make good foregrounds for pictures and good sitting spots between meanderings. The rocks at Mather Overlook are probably part of the late Precambrian McCoy Creek Group. They come in a variety of whites, pale greens, and purplish grays, with occasional other colors like this nice orange. The metaquartzites are shiny, sugary, and show swirled to laminated bedding.
This pale green metaquartzite is cut by a sugary, white quartz vein, probably a metamorphic sweat-out vein. This type of vein most likely doesn't contain gold, but given the proximity to the Osceola gold district located on the west side of Wheeler Peak, one never knows.
The ground, besides being littered with loose rocks and rock outcrops, was turning green with grass and soon-to-be wildflowers. The air was crisp and refreshing at 36° F (2° C), and the views into Utah were spectacular.
We finally turned away from the mountain, walked back to the Prius, and drove down the hill to the 6,825-foot elevation of the Lehman Caves Visitor Center. We were glad to find that the NPS website was incorrect about the Cafe and Gift Shop operating hours. We went inside and had lunch with chocolate milkshakes.

My Year of Traveling Meme

This traveling meme was started by Alice at Sciencewomen, passed to Magma Cum Laude, then to NOVA Geoblog, and on to Geotripper Part 1 and Part 2, and then on to Geology Happens.

January: The famous (or infamous?) International Hotel in Austin, Nevada. This is currently the last recorded visit to this establishment. The beer is okay.
I don't recommend the food.UPDATE 17Jan10: The food on Christmas day was excellent!
February: Great Basin National Park and environs twice (and at least one trip through central Nevada).
March: Alaska, for the Iditarod and beers (and more than two trips through central Nevada).
April: Middlegate Station, Nevada - a good place to eat, has above average beer, and you can have wi-fi in your room. The Carlin Canyon Unconformity (or fault, depending on who you talk to) - and at least two trips through central Nevada.
May: Titus Canyon - the largest breccia fragments are truck sized. Death Valley. The Mojave Desert - granite at Teutonia Peak, part of Cima Dome. Some mines and properties in western Nevada as part of the GSN spring field trip (and two or three trips across central Nevada, depending on how you define "central.").
June: Wheeler Peak in springtime (would you believe late winter?).
July: Back to Wheeler Peak, more than once, where it was looking like spring. San Francisco, where I didn't get pictures of any famous bridges but did have some good beer. (Also in July, at least two trips through central Nevada.)
August: I made one short trip and completed most of a second trip to Caliente, Nevada, and environs (and made two trips through central Nevada).
September: Reno - that's Slide Mountain on the left and Mt. Rose on the right. Our lake house (we have to drive for this view). Lassen Volcanic National Park. (And two drives through central Nevada.)
October: I went to Crater Lake and other points north on the way to the GSA meeting in Portland. Then, after going here and there, I went to Jarbidge, Nevada, a first for me. (And made only one trip through central NV.)
November: I hiked in the southern Egan Range, where I had a great view of Wheeler Peak. Later in the month, I went to Reno for a GSN meeting, but took zero photos. (Drove across central Nevada twice.)
December: I went to Reno for the NWMA convention, where I once again took zero photos. I drove to our lake house and drove back through snow. I've been across central Nevada twice so far this month and don't have any big plans for the rest of the month. I've taken care of business, shoveled snow, and watched birds at our little house in eastern Nevada.