Spring Break in Susanville and the Blood Moon.

Rest stop along the way

 

For spring break this year I decided to try a long trip on my motorcycle and headed up to Susanville to see my brother and his family.

Since it’s such a long drive I managed to break it up by stopping off in Sacramento to visit Ric and do a little kayaking

lake Natomas

 

Driving over Donner pass was a little chilly but overall I had some great weather for riding. Once in Susanville I had a great time, we went hiking on the Biz Johnson trail and Michael and Mathew had a blast getting us to play Mario party.

 

Along Millers road/ Biz Johnson trail

We even stayed up late for the Lunar eclipse.

Lunar eclipse

Lunar eclipse

 

Lunar eclipse

I almost missed the blood moon as it was getting chilly outside so we all went inside when the moon went dark but I stepped outside right before going to sleep and there it was.

Blood Moon

For the return trip I decided to take a detour through Yosemite but I’ll write about that later.

 

 

Of Cinders and Rainbows

Rainbow Basin, California

 

Since this semester I was fortunate enough to take a geology class I got to head out on a field trip. Not like I need an excuse to head out to the desert for some hiking but I’m happy to take advantage of one.

        Our first stop was a brief stop along highway 58 to observe the way the landscape changed as we passed through the area where the Garlock fault crossed heading westward towards the San Andreas fault and East towards Death Valley. It was explained that this was a left lateral slip fault, unlike the San Andreas which would be a right lateral slip-fault. this means that if we looked across the Garlock fault when it moved we would observe it moving to the left. Since this was not a particularly active fault we observed no motion.

        We then headed to Ludlow and on to Dish hill and its accompanying saucer hill. Both are basalt cinder cones though Dish hill is a horseshoe shape as part of it is open. Perhaps due to a past eruption. The taller dish hill and shorter saucer are joined by a ‘saddle’, a ridge where the more reddish basalt from dish hill meets the darker basalt from saucer hill. We were told this was a good location to look for xenoliths. Chunks of the earths mantle, mostly made up of olivine that had been surrounded by magma which had cooled rapidly enough around the ‘chunk’ that it remained seperate from the surrounding basalt. I set off in the direction of the saddle in search of some. I stopped in a small ravine where I spotted a structure dug into the surrounding basalt. Later we speculated later that this might have been storage for explosives used when cinders were being actively mined from dish hill. About two thirds of the way up the ridge I found a nice chunk of slightly weathered Olivine. It has small green crystals possibly peridot, and bright black crystals. It is ovoid in shape and measures approximately 4cmx3cmx2cm. I continued up the hill and found a large chunk of basalt that was split open it had a great example of a xenolith embedded in it. since it was a little large I took a photo instead of collecting it, being sure to include my rock hammer for scale.

 

High desert

 

 

Train passing by Dish hill

 

 

Proceeding up to the top of the ridge I found another good example of a xenolith as well as a view of the opening of the horseshoe shape of dish hill. This xenolith was embedded in basalt that also included vesicular basalt. There were a lot of large(10-20cm) pieces of vesicular basalt in the area which were very light, making me think they might even be light enough to float the way pumice does. Several people had climbed the main hill above the old mining ruins and I took some pictures as they made their way back down. Some had found pieces of obsidian though I did not find any of these.

 

Xenolith

We returned back through Barstow on our way to our next stop which was Rainbow basin. Here we observed that most of the surrounding was made not of basalt or granite but of various layers of mud. This sedimentary rock was in various layers each with distinctive colors and textures, though almost all was fine enough to have been deposits of mud, silt or clay, not sand. Here we saw excellent examples of how the sediment layers which would have been layed horizontally originally had been shifted to different angles and folds and then even more layers had built up. Some of which would have been ash from nearby volcanic eruptions. This explains some of the dramatic colors we observed in the different layers. Climbing around I spotted some openings in the mud which turned out to be small mud caves formed by erosion. At least one of these proceeded back far enough to justify the title of cave as I was in total darkness well before reaching the back of the cave which then slopped downhill for anothe 7 or eight feet to where there appeared to be a drainage sump. Outside of the cave we spotted a small opening approximately 30 feet away that appeared to be where the water would enter the stream bed. Walking upstream I found what appeared to be a wonderful example of calcite ( approx 20x20x20cm) It was white/clear with a bright green layer in the center. There was also a lot of small granite and feldspar chunks in the stream bed presumably washed there from up above the mud ridge.

Rainbow basin

Inside a mud cave

Mud cave entrance

 

Examining rock samples inside the mud cave

After all this fun I had a chilly ride home on my motorcycle( I had traveled over 400 miles) but I broke it up into several stops for dinner and after dinner snacks so it wasn’t bad.

My motorcycle near dish hill

 

 

 

Indian Wells Valley

Indian Wells Valley

Since its been a surprisingly warm and dry winter,

last month I headed out to join a group hiking up to Owens peak.

Now this would be no simple task as Owens peak is the highest point in the southern Sierra Madre Mountains at more than 8,400 feet. Also the trail starts fairly far up in Indian Wells Valley at the end of a jeep trail so this called for the bug to do a little trail driving. As it was I totally underestimated the drive time and arrived a good half hour after the rest of the group had already left. I headed up the trail anyway hoping Id see them near the top. Somewhere around 7600′ of elevation (according to my gps) I lost the trail though. It was not well marked at higher elevations and as I scrambled over weathered granite and piles of loose scree I realized I was following what was probably a mule deer trail. I reached the rocks just below the peak (approx 8000′ elevation) and decided that the crumbly nature of these rocks didn’t lend themselves to a safe ascent  so I began making my way back down. A little disappointment I didn’t reach the peak, but that’ll give me a reason to come back and enjoy the wonderful views on a different day. Once back at the trail head I waited around till others from the group came down and i found out that several others had missed the upper part of the trail as well. apparently it veers off to the left even though the peak is to your right as you go up, then follows a ridge around to the top. So now I know for next time.

 

slope of loose decomposed granite

Snow along the trail – not much for January though!

Something got hungry! Prickly pear (opuntia)

 

the peak is just on the other side of those rocks

view

 

Rocks back by the trail head

Baja bug along the jeep trail

 

Windmills on the way home

Joshua tree, sunset

 

 

 

 

 

Got Wood?

Got wood?

Yes that’s what my new bumper sticker from Sequoia National park says. This year we decided to forego the usual fireworks displays for July 4th and instead my Cousins family invited me to join them and my Uncle for a trip to see the trees. It felt good to get out of the warm valley where it was starting to finally feel like summer and escape to the cool mountains. Since this was such a popular destination this time of year the campground at Lodgepole was booked but my Uncle managed to snag us a couple reservations at nearby Dorst creek.

Right after breakfast Nick spotted all these caterpillars gathered in the nearby bushes so I ran over to take a few pictures.

caterpillar

communal cocoon

There sure were a lot of them…

After that we hopped on a motion sickness inducing ride- the park shuttle. At least it was for Nick who vowed no more shuttle rides. We got off at the visitor center and then decided to hike out to Tokopah falls. I was excited to see what the trail looked like in summer since the last time I hiked it, it was covered in snow!

With snow on the trail

 

Trail, now where’d all that snow go?

Along the trail we were lucky enough to come across some folks who had spotted a grouse with chicks!

Grouse

 

curious chick

We continued onto the waterfall and arrived at around  midday, sadly there isn’t much shade amidst the rocks by the falls so we beat a hasty retreat back into the shady woods to enjoy our lunch.

Kelley’s lily.(Lilium kelleyanum) along the trail.

 

Tokopah falls

We had a nice hike back, enjoying the scenery, wildflowers along the trail and even a deer that crossed the trail. We enjoyed an ice cream at the visitors center and then it was back to our camp for a campfire to roast marshmallows on.

Trees

The next day we headed out to visit some of the famous trees in the park, we started out with a walk through the General Sherman Grove.

Then after a stop for lunch at a nearby picnic site where we were visited by another deer, we went on to visit the sentinel tree and tour the giant forest museum.

Marvin and I walked around Beetle rock to admire the view before we headed back to camp again.

deer

 

beetle rock

 

That night we had a lovely campfire and roasted even more marshmallows! Most of which did not burst into flames but were toasted a lovely golden brown. All too soon it was time to head back to town.

It was a great fourth of July even without fireworks.

sunset

 

 

 

A first caving trip

coming down the trail

When Kip sent out an email asking who wanted to help take his Daughter on her first cave trip. I was very happy to see that I had the day free.

We decided to head down to Natural Bridges. This turned out to be an excellent choice as we had wonderful weather for the hike and since there is a nice trail down to the stream Faye was able to walk all the way down on her own. Though Kip did give frequent warnings about rocks on the path and the poison oak alongside the trail. We found quite a few people swimming and picnicking at the upper section of cave  so we headed to the downstream where it was less crowded. Here I found a surprise, there were literally dozens of crayfish crawling around the rocks at the entrance. While its not uncommon to see one or two this was the most I’d ever seen and Kip and I agreed it was unusual.

Crawdad at the entrance to the lower cave.

Next we geared up for a little caving, there’s not a huge amount of passage in the lower section but we had fun exploring and admiring the formations.

Hurry up Daddy!

Rimstone dam

caving

Admiring the formations

More sparkling rimstone.

Happy caver

So Faye had a good time and hopefully she’ll get to join us on many future cave trips.